Baar, Switzerland

History

Baar is first mentioned in 1045 as Barra.

Geography

Baar has an area, as of 2006, of 24.8 km² (9.6 sq mi). Of this area, 55% is used for agricultural purposes, while 24.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 19.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.6%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

The municipality is located in the northern portion of the flood plain of the Lorze river. It was originally a linear village along the road between Lake Zug and Lake Zurich. Since the 1960s it has grown rapidly. It consists of the village of Baar and the former hamlets of Allenwinden, Blickensdorf and Inwil, as well as the farm houses of Deinikon.

Demographics

Baar has a population (as of 31 December 2015) of 23,561. As of 2007, 24.9% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years, the population has grown at a rate of 20.9%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (83.1%), with Italian being second most common (3.6%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (3.1%).

In the 2007 federal election, the most popular party was the SVP which received 31.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.9%), the FDP (18.2%) and the Green Party (17.7%).

The historical population is given in the following table:

Education

In Baar about 72% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule).

Baar is home to the International School of Zug and Luzern, or ISZL. The ISZL is an independent co-educational, non-profit day school, from Pre-School to Grade 12 serving the international community of Central Switzerland.

The municipality has a stadium, named Waldmannhalle, with fixed seating for 1,200 people. This regular capacity can be extended to 3,000 for larger events.

Industry

From 1980 to 2006, it was also home to Lego Produktion AG, a toy manufacturing plant owned by the Lego Group where some Lego parts, especially those for the Lego Technic building sets, were manufactured. In 2006, the Lego Group announced a restructuring of the current production setup including the outsourcing of some of the production work to Flextronics, a Singaporean electronics company. Lego Produktion AG in Baar was to be shut down and its operations moved to a plant now owned by Flextronics in Kladno, Czech Republic. Lego Technic parts would still be manufactured in the headquarters at Billund, Denmark, which then had a workforce of 3,000.

Baar serves as the official headquarters of Glencore, the global producer and trader of commodities, Sika AG, a chemical company with products for construction and automotive.

Baar has an unemployment rate of 2.26%. As of 2005, there were 333 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 94 businesses involved in this sector. 3,810 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 278 businesses in this sector. 9,335 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 1,415 businesses in this sector.

Baar is also home to the Typo3 Association, which moderates the free open source content management system Typo3.

Transportation

Baar railway station is a stop on the InterRegio service between Zürich Hauptbahnhof and Lucerne, serviced every full hour, as well as on the Zurich S-Bahn service S24 between Zug and Zürich Oerlikon. Several stops of the Stadtbahn Zug are in Baar.

In the summer months it is possible to rent free bikes to bike around Baar. This can be done near the Rathaus.

People