Brontallo is a village and former municipality in the district of
Vallemaggia
The Vallemaggia District is a district of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It has a population of (as of ). The capital of the district is Cevio.
Geography
The Vallemaggia District has an area, , of . Of this area, or 1.7% is used for ...
in the
canton of Ticino
Ticino ( ), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eight districts and its capital city is Bellinzo ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
.
In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio, Fusio,
Menzonio
Menzonio is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.
In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio, Brontallo, Fusio, Peccia and Prato-Sor ...
Lavizzara
Lavizzara is a municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.
The municipality was created in 2004 by a merger of Broglio, Brontallo, Fusio, Menzonio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 14 January 2010
History
Brontallo is first mentioned in 1364 as ''Bruntalo''.
Until the beginning of the 15th century it formed a community with Menzonio and together with Bignasco and Cavergno it formed a '' Vicinanza''.
The church of S. Maria e S. Giorgio was first mentioned in the 15th century. In the 16th century it was rebuilt, and then renovated several times thereafter. Until 1513 it, along with Menzonio, was part of the
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
of Cevio. In 1513 Menzonio broke away from Cevio, but Brontallo remained part of the parish until 1655.
The greatest population was during the 17th century. The population decline began in the 18th century, but accelerated into the 20th century. The road running from the village into the Val Lavizzara was completed in 1955. In 1990 less than a third of the workforce was employed in agriculture. Many of the homes in the village are now vacation homes.
Geography
Brontallo has an area, , of . Of this area, or 1.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 57.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 0.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 36.4% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.3%. Out of the forested land, 41.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 6.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 1.1% is used for growing crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 16.5% is unproductive vegetation and 19.9% is too rocky for vegetation.
The village is located in the Vallemaggia district, on a terrace at an elevation of on the right side of the valley.
Coat of arms
The
blazon
In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...
of the municipal
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...
is ''Azure St. George armoured argent haloed and with a lace or stanging on a dragon vert langued gules piercing it.'' St. George is the patron saint of the village church.
Demographics
Brontallo has a population () of 50.
Most of the population () speaks
Italian language
Italian (, , or , ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. It evolved from the colloquial Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent language from Latin, together with Sardinian language, Sardinian. It is ...
(46 or 92.0%), with
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
being second most common (2 or 4.0%) and
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
being third (1 or 2.0%).
Of the population in the village 32 or about 64.0% were born in Brontallo and lived there in 2000. There were 10 or 20.0% who were born in the same canton, while 4 or 8.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 4 or 8.0% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 23 people who were single and never married in the village. There were 21 married individuals, 6 widows or widowers and 0 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000 accessed 2 February 2011
There were 6 households that consist of only one person and 3 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 19 households that answered this question, 31.6% were households made up of just one person and 2 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2 married couples without children, 8 married couples with children There were 1 single parents with a child or children.
there were 92 single-family homes (or 96.8% of the total) out of a total of 95 inhabited buildings. There were 3 multi-family buildings (3.2%). Of the single-family homes 4 were built before 1919, while 0 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single-family homes (56) were built between 1919 and 1945.Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011
there were 98 apartments in the village. The most common apartment size was 2 rooms of which there were 27. There were 15 single room apartments and 15 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 19 apartments (19.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 79 apartments (80.6%) were seasonally occupied.
The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850-2000 accessed 29 January 2011
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id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
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PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
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Period = from:0 till:230
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0
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color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1669 from:start till:227 text:"227"
bar:1795 from:start till:90 text:"90"
bar:1850 from:start till:173 text:"173"
bar:1860 from:start till:173 text:"173"
bar:1870 from:start till:163 text:"163"
bar:1880 from:start till:164 text:"164"
bar:1888 from:start till:158 text:"158"
bar:1900 from:start till:133 text:"133"
bar:1910 from:start till:136 text:"136"
bar:1920 from:start till:118 text:"118"
bar:1930 from:start till:96 text:"96"
bar:1941 from:start till:84 text:"84"
bar:1950 from:start till:92 text:"92"
bar:1960 from:start till:83 text:"83"
bar:1970 from:start till:64 text:"64"
bar:1980 from:start till:58 text:"58"
bar:1990 from:start till:55 text:"55"
bar:2000 from:start till:50 text:"50"
Economy
There were 13 residents of the village who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 15.4% of the workforce. , there were 10 workers who commuted into the village and 8 workers who commuted away. The village is a net importer of workers, with about 1.3 workers entering the village for every one leaving.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb accessed 24 June 2010
Religion
From the , 45 or 90.0% were
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
, while 2 or 4.0% belonged to the
Swiss Reformed Church
The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...
. There was 1 person who belonged to no church, was
agnostic
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...
or
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
, and 2 individuals (or about 4.00% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Brontallo about 18 or (36.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory
upper secondary education
Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education.
Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...
, and 5 or (10.0%) have completed additional higher education (either
University
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
or a ''
Fachhochschule
A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...
''). Of the 5 who completed tertiary schooling, 80.0% were Swiss men, 20.0% were Swiss women.
, there were 10 students from Brontallo who attended schools outside the village.