Bäretswil

Geschichte

Bäretswil is a municipality in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.HistoryBäretswil is first mentioned in 741 as Berofovilare. In 745 it was mentioned as Perolfeswilari.GeographyBäretswil has an area of 22.2km2. Of this area, 51.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 39.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 8.2% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (1.2%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). housing and buildings made up 5.4% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest (2.8%). Of the total unproductive area, water (streams and lakes) made up 0.2% of the area. 4.7% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction.The municipality is located in the hills between the Glatt and Töss Valleys. It includes the villages of Bäretswil and Adetswil as well as the hamlets of Bettswil, Wappenswil, Hof-Neuthal, Tanne and Klein Bäretswil and scattered individual homes.The old cotton mill, pictured, now houses museums of spinning and weaving machinery.DemographicsBäretswil has a population of., 8.9% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 10.2%. Most of the population speaks German (93.9%), with Italian being second most common ( 1.7%) and Albanian being third ( 1.3%).