Albinen

Geschichte

Albinen is a municipality in the district of Leuk in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.HistoryAlbinen is first mentioned in 1224 as Albignun. Later, it was known as Albinnon or by its French name Arbignon.GeographyAlbinen has an area, of 15.5km2. Of this area, 7.19km2 or 46.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 6.11km2 or 39.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.52km2 or 3.4% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.05km2 or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and 1.66km2 or 10.7% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.9%. Out of the forested land, 34.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.1% is used for growing crops and 3.3% is pastures and 43.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 3.7% is unproductive vegetation and 7.0% is too rocky for vegetation.The municipality is located in the Leuk district. It consists of the village of Albinen, the alpine pasture settlements of Chermignon and Torrent along with the former herding camp (now vacation villages) of Ober Dorbu and Tschingere. These towns were established back in the days when the farmers of Albinen lived a semi-nomadic life.Albinen is situated in the south of Switzerland in the Swiss Alps at 1275m above sea level. The town is on a sunny, south-facing slope between two creeks.