, neighboring_municipalities= Bürglen (UR),

Glarus , neighboring_municipalities= Glarus Nord, Glarus Süd, Muotathal (SZ), Innerthal (SZ) , twintowns= Wiesbaden-Biebrich (Germany) } Glarus (; gsw, Glaris; french: Glaris; it, Glarona; rm, Glaruna) is the capital of the canton of Glarus i ...

(GL),

Glarus Süd Glarus Süd is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Glarus. It comprises the upper Linth valley, and the entire Sernf valley, and includes the villages of Betschwanden, Braunwald, Diesbach, Elm, Engi, Haslen, Hätzingen, Leuggelbach, Lin ...

(GL), Illgau, Innerthal, Morschach, Oberiberg,

Riemenstalden Riemenstalden is a municipality in Schwyz District in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. The villages can be reached by road from Sisikon (Canton of Uri). Geography Riemenstalden has an area, , of . Of this area, 49.3% is used for agricultur ...

, Spiringen (UR),

Schwyz The town of Schwyz (; french: Schwytz; it, Svitto) is the capital of the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. The Federal Charter of 1291 or ''Bundesbrief'', the charter that eventually led to the foundation of Switzerland, can be seen at the ...

, Unteriberg,

Unterschächen Unterschächen is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland, situated in the upper Schächental. Geography Unterschächen has an area, , of . Of this area, 35.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 9.4% is forested. Of the rest ...

(UR) , twintowns= } Muotathal is a village and 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 The canton of Schwyz (german: Kanton Schwyz rm, Chantun Sviz; french: Canton de Schwytz; it, Canton Svitto) is a canton in central Switzerland between the Alps in the south, Lake Lucern ...

in the

canton of Schwyz The canton of Schwyz (german: Kanton Schwyz rm, Chantun Sviz; french: Canton de Schwytz; it, Canton Svitto) is a canton in central Switzerland between the Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centred o ...

in Switzerland. The eponymous valley, the Muotatal, is formed by the Muota, which joins

Lake Lucerne __NOTOC__ Lake Lucerne (german: Vierwaldstättersee, literally "Lake of the four forested settlements" (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), french: lac des Quatre-Cantons, it, lago dei Quattro Cantoni) is a lake in central ...

at Brunnen.

History

Muotathal is first mentioned in 1246 as ''Muthathal'' and ''Mutetal''.

Geography

The village is located in the valley of the river Muota, the Muotatal, with which it shares the name. The municipality is located in a series of valleys on the eastern edge of the canton, on the borders with the cantons of Uri and

. It is the 10th largest municipality area-wise in Switzerland. It consists of the hamlet Ried, village sections of Schachen, Wil, Hinterthal (had its own post office since 1896, though it has now grown together with Schachen), and the hamlet Bisisthal in the Bisistal further upstream of the Muota. It also includes a number of alps (

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 ' from the term for "seasonal mountain pasture", '). T ...

s) including

Glattalp __NOTOC__ Glattalpsee is a reservoir on Glattalp, above Bisisthal, in the municipality of Muotathal, Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. Its surface area is . On February 7, 1991, the record low temperature of was registered. See also *List of mounta ...

, Toralp, Charetalp and Goldplangg. The municipality Muotathal has an area of . Of this area, 32.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 22% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (44.2%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality includes the entry site of the

Hölloch The Hölloch ( en, Hellhole) is a long cave in the municipality Muotathal in Switzerland. In addition to being the second longest cave in Europe, it is also notable for having a depth of . The Hölloch is an example of a karst cave system. E ...

, which at over 200 km is the longest cave in Switzerland, and currently the second-longest in Europe.

Demographics

Muotathal has a population (as of ) of . , 5.2% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 0.3%. Most of the population () speaks German (96.5%), with Albanian being second most common ( 2.5%) and Macedonian being third ( 0.3%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 31-Aug-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 52.3% male and 47.7% female. The age distribution, , in Muotathal is; 1,069 people or 30.5% of the population is between 0 and 19. 1,017 people or 29.0% are 20 to 39, and 972 people or 27.7% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 251 people or 7.2% are 65 to 74. There are 148 people or 4.2% who are 70 to 79 and 50 people or 1.43% of the population who are over 80.Canton Schwyz Statistics
accessed 27 August 2009 there are 1,154 households, of which 246 households (or about 21.3%) contain only a single individual. 154 or about 13.3% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 67.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22%), the SPS (5.1%) and the FDP (4.5%). In Muotathal about 46.9% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final ph ...

or additional higher education (either university or a ''

Fachhochschule A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied ar ...

''). Muotathal has an unemployment rate of 0.67%. , there were 303 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 119 businesses involved in this sector. 512 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 constructio ...

and there are 51 businesses in this sector. 414 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 secon ...

, with 82 businesses in this sector. From the , 3,197 or 91.2% are

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

, while 47 or 1.3% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), (EKS); french: Église évangélique réformée de Suisse (EERS); it, Chiesa evangelica riformata in Svizzera (CERiS); rm, Baselgia evangelica refurmada da la Svizra (BRRS) formerly named Federation o ...

. Of the rest of the population, there are 14 individuals (or about 0.40% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church. There are 133 (or about 3.79% of the population) who are Islamic. There are less than 5 individuals who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 34 (or about 0.97% of the population) belong to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficie ...

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 81 individuals (or about 2.31% of the population) did not answer the question. The historical population is given in the following table:

Weather

Muotathal has an average of 157.8 days of rain per year and on average receives of

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hai ...

. The wettest month is June during which time Muotathal receives an average of of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 15.9 days. The driest month of the year is October with an average of of precipitation over 15.9 days., the weather station elevation is 620 meters above sea level.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Schwyz Reuss basin