Seelisberg 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' ...

in the canton of Uri in

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 ...

History

The Rütli meadow, according to legend the site of the original

oath Traditionally, an oath (from Old English, Anglo-Saxon ', also a plight) is a utterance, statement of fact or a promise taken by a Sacred, sacrality as a sign of Truth, verity. A common legal substitute for those who object to making sacred oaths ...

foundational to the

Old Swiss Confederacy The Old Swiss Confederacy, also known as Switzerland or the Swiss Confederacy, was a loose confederation of independent small states (, German or ), initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerlan ...

, is situated in the territory of the municipality. The Seelisberg Conference against

anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

was held in this locality in 1947. The global headquarters of the Transcendental Meditation movement headed by

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 191? – 5 February 2008) was the creator of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and leader of the worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways, including as a new ...

was situated in a converted hotel in Seelisberg from 1968 to 1992. Johann Heinrich Müller, 1825-1894 G11 Seelisberg.JPG, The "Grand Hôtel Sonnenberg" c. 1880. Postcard; etching by Heinrich Müller

Geography

Seelisberg has an area, , of . Of this area, 34.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 48.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 4% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (13.1%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). , 43.5% of the total land area was heavily forested, while 0.7% is covered in small trees and shrubbery. Of the agricultural land, 0.7% is used for farming or pastures, while 23.6% is used for orchards or vine crops and 10.0% is used for alpine pastures. Of the settled areas, 2.0% is covered with buildings, 0.5% is classed as special developments, 0.2% is listed as parks and greenbelts and 1.3% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 1.9% is unproductive standing water (ponds or lakes), 0.2% is unproductive flowing water (rivers), 5.7% is too rocky for vegetation, and 5.3% is other unproductive land.Canton Uri - Ground use statistics
accessed 8 September 2009

Demographics

Seelisberg has a population (as of ) of . , 11.1% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 4.2%. Most of the population () speaks German (97.1%), with French being second most common (0.8%) and English being third ( 0.5%).
accessed 09-Sep-2009 the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female.Uri Population statistics
accessed 8 September 2009 In the 2007 federal election the FDP party received 93.4% of the vote. In Seelisberg about 67.8% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education 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 ...

''). Seelisberg has an unemployment rate of 0.88%. , there were 72 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 31 businesses involved in this sector. 18 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 7 businesses in this sector. 151 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 29 businesses in this sector. The historical population is given in the following table:Uri in Numbers 2009/10 edition
accessed 8 September 2009

Transport

Regular passenger boats of the Schifffahrtsgesellschaft des Vierwaldstättersees serve piers at Treib and Rütli on the

Lake 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 ...

shore of the municipality. Treib is linked to the centre of Seelisberg by the Treib–Seelisberg funicular.

References

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Uri Populated places on Lake Lucerne