Bretzwil

Geschichte

Bretzwil is a municipality in the district of Waldenburg in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.HistoryBretzwil is first mentioned in 1194 as Braswilere. In 1247 it was mentioned as Brezwilr.GeographyBretzwil has an area, of 7.33km2. Of this area, 4.17km2 or 56.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.83km2 or 38.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.35km2 or 4.8% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.01km2 or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.8%. Out of the forested land, 35.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 10.5% is used for growing crops and 35.1% is pastures, while 4.8% is used for orchards or vine crops and 6.5% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.The municipality is located in the Waldenburg district, at the base of the Jura Mountains.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or, two Battons fleury Gules in saltire.DemographicsBretzwil has a population of., 7.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 8.5%.Most of the population speaks German (669 or 94.0%), with Turkish being second most common (10 or 1.4%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (6 or 0.8%). There are 4 people who speak French.