Morschach 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' ...

Schwyz District Schwyz District is a district of the canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. It is both the largest and most populous of the six districts of the canton of Schwyz, accounting for around half its surface area, and 40% of the population. It has a population ...

in the

canton of Schwyz The canton of Schwyz ( ; ; ; ) is a Cantons of Switzerland, canton in central Switzerland between the Swiss Alps, Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centred on and named after the town of Schwyz. It is one ...

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 ...

. It was a world-famous resort from 1869 up to the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

Geography

The municipality is located on a

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and Rock (geology), rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a gla ...

above the

Lake of Lucerne Lake Lucerne (, literally 'Lake of the four Waldstätte, forested settlements' (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), , ) is a lake in central Switzerland and the fourth largest in the country. Geography The lake has a compli ...

. It consists of the village of Morschach and includes the summer and winter resort at

Stoos Stoos is a village located in the municipality of Morschach. It is situated at in the Swiss canton of Schwyz and has about 100 inhabitants (population was counted at 106 during a 2007 census). It is used as a small ski resort with a cable ca ...

. Morschach has an area, , of . Of this area, 52.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 36.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (8.6%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

History

Morschach is first mentioned in 1261 as ''Morsacho''. From the 13th century until 1865, when the Axenstrasse was finished, the bridle path towards the

Gotthard Pass The Gotthard Pass or St. Gotthard Pass (; ) at is a mountain pass in the Alps traversing the Saint-Gotthard Massif and connecting northern Switzerland with southern Switzerland. The pass lies between Airolo in the Italian-speaking canton of Ti ...

led through the village. In 1869, the "Grand Hotel Axenstein" opened in a site which

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

had called "the most beautiful place on earth", because of its stunning view of Lake Lucerne far below and the mountains. Four years later, a second luxury hotel was built, the "Palace Hotel Axenfels". Among the celebrities who spent their holidays in Morschach were King

Ludwig II of Bavaria Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886), also called the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King (), was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke ...

, Queen

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands Wilhelmina (; Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria; 31 August 1880 – 28 November 1962) was List of monarchs of the Netherlands, Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, making her the longest- ...

and

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

. In 1905, a

rack railway A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with ...

was built from

Brunnen Brunnen is a resort on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, part of the municipality Ingenbohl (Canton of Schwyz), at . Brunnen railway station, on the Gotthard railway, is served by hourly InterRegio trains, and by lines S2 of the Stadtbahn Zug, wh ...

to Morschach and Axenstein. But the Great Depression and World War II led to a dramatic decline of international tourism, from which the old Morschach hotels never recovered. The "Axenfels" was demolished in 1947, the "Axenstein" in 1967. The rack railway was closed in 1969.''Geschichte''
on the website of Morschach municipality (in German). Retrieved August 4, 2022. Since the Swiss Holiday Park opened in 1982, Morschach has become a major resort again. Morschach-01

Demographics

Morschach has a population (as of ) of . , 14.7% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 9.3%. Most of the population () speaks German (89.0%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common ( 2.0%) and Portuguese being third ( 1.7%).
accessed 31-Aug-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 54.4% male and 45.6% female. The age distribution, , in Morschach is; 274 people or 28.6% of the population is between 0 and 19. 331 people or 34.6% are 20 to 39, and 247 people or 25.8% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 67 people or 7.0% are 65 to 74. There are 36 people or 3.8% who are 70 to 79 and 3 people or 0.31% of the population who are over 80.Canton Schwyz Statistics
accessed 27 August 2009 there are 305 households, of which 75 households (or about 24.6%) contain only a single individual. 27 or about 8.9% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 45.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (26.3%), the SPS (16%) and the FDP (8.6%). In Morschach about 57.2% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either 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 ...

or additional higher education (either university 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 ...

''). Morschach has an unemployment rate of 1.41%. , there were 70 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 32 businesses involved in this sector. 15 people are employed in the

secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in constructi ...

and there are 6 businesses in this sector. 434 people are employed in the

tertiary sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...

, with 42 businesses in this sector. From the , 710 or 74.1% are

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 65 or 6.8% 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 ...

. Of the rest of the population, there are 6 individuals (or about 0.63% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are less than 5 individuals who belong to another Christian church. There are 13 (or about 1.36% of the population) who are

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. There are less than 5 individuals who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 66 (or about 6.89% of the population) belong to no church, are

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 ...

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 95 individuals (or about 9.92% of the population) did not answer the question. The historical population is given in the following table:

References

External links

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Schwyz Spa towns in Switzerland