Gerlos is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

with 793 inhabitants (as of Jan. 2019) in

Schwaz Schwaz () is a city in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is the administrative center of the Schwaz district. Schwaz is located in the lower Inn valley. Location Schwaz lies in the middle of the Lower Inn Valley at the foot of the Kellerjoch ...

district of the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n state of

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

. The village is popular with skiing tourists, mainly families, as there is easy access to Zillertal Arena Centre on Isskogel. The village lies in the Zell am Ziller judicial district. The municipality of Gerlos has seven districts: Au, Gmünd, Innertal, Mitterhof, Oberhof, Ried and Schwarzach.

Geography

Gerlos is located in the :de:Gerlostal, which is a side valley of the

Zillertal The Ziller Valley () is a valley in Tyrol (state), Tyrol, Austria that is drained by the Ziller River. It is the widest valley south of the Inn (river), Inn Valley () and lends its name to the Zillertal Alps, the strongly Glacier, glaciated sectio ...

, branching to the east near Zell am Ziller. Gerlos consists of several hamulated located along the Gerlos Pass on the floor of the valley, at an altitude of around 1200m. To the south, the side valleys of :de:Schwarzach, :de:Wimmerbach, and :de:Schönach lead to the Zillertal Alps, which are over 3000 meters tall. To the north, there is a ski area on the Kitzbuhel Alps. The municipal area of Gerlos has an area of approximately 120 km². A third of this is forested, a quarter is High Alpine, and the rest are

alpine pasture Alpine transhumance is transhumance as practiced in the Alps, that is, a seasonal droving of grazing livestock between the valleys in winter and the high mountain pastures in summer (German language, German ' from the term for "seasonal mount ...

s. Three percent of the area is used for

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

History

In the 9th century, the

Archbishop of Salzburg The Archdiocese of Salzburg (; ) is a Latin Church, Latin rite archdiocese of the Catholic Church centered in Salzburg, Austria. It is also the principal diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Salzburg. The archdiocese is one of two Austrian ...

acquired large estates in the Zillertal, and the only direct connection between

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

and its Tyrolean territories was a mule track. In the 14th century, several tax-paying Schwaighöfe (

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

and dairy producing farms) were established in Gmünd, Ried, and Oberhof. Until the erection of a Gothic

filial church A filial church, in the Roman Catholic Church, is a church to which is annexed the cure of souls, but which remains dependent on another church. The term comes from the Latin ''filialis'', from ''filia'', “daughter”. Description The term ''fi ...

in 1470, Gerlos 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 Zell am Ziller. St Lambert's tower and Leonhard church were built circa 1500. The parish church in Gerlos today still contains its substructure, up to the octagonal attachment. The other parts of Gerlos' church were built in 1735 by :de:Hans Holzmeister. Gerlos became a parish in 1891. Gerlos was first mentioned in a 1507 document as "saltus gerlaise" (Gerlos Pass). The valley and place name "gerlaise" is probably derived from the words "ger", meaning "pointed property", and "laise", a wild

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

. Gerlos' forests are also referenced in the same year, under the name "silvam cui nomen Gerleis". The area experienced a high when

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

was discovered in the neighbouring towns of Hainzenberg and Zell am Ziller. Gold was also discovered in Gerlos itself, where it was mined from the 17th century up to 1870. The Gerlos Pass also played an important role in the

Tyrolean Rebellion The Tyrolean Rebellion () was an 1809 rebellion in the County of Tyrol against the Bavarian and French occupation of Tyrol during the War of the Fifth Coalition. Led by Andreas Hofer, the rebellion was initially successful in freeing the Coun ...

of 1809, when troops from

Pinzgau The Bezirk Zell am See is an administrative district (''Bezirk'') in the federal state of Salzburg, Austria, and congruent with the Pinzgau region (). The area of the district is , with a population of 84,124 (May 15, 2001), and population dens ...

invaded

. Although the pass had been, for many centuries, the most important route from Tyrol to Salzburg, there were plans for the construction of a new road as early as 1630, although this never materialised: the roads were still in poor condition in late in the 19th century. In 1866, the "Bote für Tirol" wrote that Gerlos roads had road gradients of 20%, bumpy

pavements Pavement(s) or paving may refer to: Surfacing * Road surface, the durable surfacing of roads and walkways * Sidewalk, a walkway along the side of a road, called a pavement in British English * Asphalt concrete, a common form of road surface * Co ...

, rutted tracks over rock ground, and sharp bends. During this period, construction of a railway line had been planned, but this never happened. When construction of a new road began in 1910, huge problems were experienced due to

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

and loosing of the soil. A new road on the Salzburg side was only completed in 1962, by Franz Wallach, the builder of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. It was another two years before the road on the Tyrolean side was passable. The Funsingau

Hydroelectric power plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

was also completed around this time. The population of Gerlos has been increasing since its founding, although the population has fluctuated in recent times. Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.7) id:sfondo value:rgb(1,1,1) ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:40 bottom:40 top:20 right:20 DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:900 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal AlignBars = late ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:100 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo PlotData= color:skyblue width:14 shift:(-50,-5) fontsize:M anchor:till bar:1869 from:0 till:416 text:416 bar:1880 from:0 till:377 text:377 bar:1890 from:0 till:339 text:339 bar:1900 from:0 till:365 text:365 bar:1910 from:0 till:365 text:365 bar:1923 from:0 till:367 text:367 bar:1934 from:0 till:480 text:480 bar:1939 from:0 till:426 text:426 bar:1951 from:0 till:528 text:528 bar:1961 from:0 till:561 text:561 bar:1971 from:0 till:680 text:680 bar:1981 from:0 till:749 text:749 bar:1991 from:0 till:781 text:781 bar:2001 from:0 till:820 text:820 bar:2011 from:0 till:779 text:779 bar:2021 from:0 till:805 text:805 TextData= fontsize:S pos:(35,20) text:"Zahlenleiste: Einwohner; Quelle: Statistik Austria"

Culture

Gerlos has 5 culturally significant buildings, for example the Gerlos parish church (pictured)

Economy and infrastructure

Tourism

In addition to electricity generation by the Fusingau power plant and

farming Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, ski

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

plays a key role in the village's economy, as Gerlos has the third highest number of winter overnight stays per year in the ZIllertal, after

Mayrhofen Mayrhofen is a town in the Zillertal (Ziller river valley) in the Austrian state of Tirol, Austria, Tyrol. It is located approximately an hour from the Tyrolean capital city of Innsbruck. Population Tourism The town offers a variety of summer an ...

and Tux. From 2010 to 2019, the number of overnight stays increased from 590,000 to 670,000. The main ski season is busiest in February, with 125,000 overnight stays. Summer months are also busy, in particular August with 774,000 overnight stays (in 2019) The skiing season of 2020 was severely impacted by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

- stays over the entire year totaled 486,444, with February overnights being reduced to only 139,347.

Traffic

The main road through Gerlos is the :de:Gerlosstrasse, which connects Zell am Ziller to

Mittersill Mittersill (; ) is a city in the federal state of Salzburg, Austria, in the Pinzgau region of the Alps. It is located on the Salzach River. It has a population of 5,408 as of 2011. Geography Mittersill lies approximately 25 km to the west o ...

. There is a seasonal bus service from Zell am Ziller at the Zillertalbahn train station.

Sports

* Swimming in the Durlassboden reservoir * Hiking in the Kitzbuelher Alps *

Via ferrata A via ferrata (Italian language, Italian for "iron path", plural ''vie ferrate'' or in English ''via ferratas'') is a protected climbing route found in the Alps and certain other Alpine locations. The protection includes steel fixtures such as ...

in :de:Riederklamm *

Mountain biking Mountain biking (MTB) is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability ...

* Piste skiing in the Zillertal Arena *

Ski touring Ski touring is skiing in the backcountry on unmarked or unpatrolled areas. Touring is typically done off-piste and outside of ski resorts, and may extend over a period of more than one day. It is similar to backcountry skiing but excludes the ...

Politics

Local council

Eleven representatives are elected to the municipal council.

Mayorship

* 1974–1992 Johann Kammerlander80igster Geburtstag Altbürgermeister Hans Kammerlander. Gerloser Gemeindeblatt März 2007 * 1992–2009 Franz Hörl (ÖVP) * since 2009 Andreas Haas

Coat of arms

The municipal coat of arms of Gerlos was created in 1985. It primarily depicts a

griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk ...

, which is the result of the merging of the heraldic animals of Salzburg and Tyrol, the eagle and the lion. This represents the location of the community, being on the border of the states, and also represents the ties to the local archbishopship of Salzburg,

Notable people

Honorary citizens

* Berthold Beitz (1913-2013) - cofounder of the Zillertal ski area. * Peter Haas (1927-2017) - a longtime

Kapellmeister ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

and

Choirmaster A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

in the village. * Johann Kammerlander (1926-2017) - former mayor of Gerlos,

restaurateur A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspe ...

Gerlos born

* :de:Simon Geisler (1686-1931), politician

Associated

* Anja Haas, (born 1971) - alpine skier, trains in the village * :de:Franz Hörl (born 1956) - politician, runs a hotel in the village.

External links

Statistics Austria - local statistics for Gerlo
here

Village Website

References

{{authority control Kitzbühel Alps Cities and towns in Schwaz District