Gretzenbach

Geschichte

Gretzenbach is a municipality in the district of Olten in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.HistoryGretzenbach is first mentioned in 778 as Grezzinbach though this comes from a 10th Century copy of the older original. In 1265 it was mentioned as Grezenbach.GeographyGretzenbach has an area, of 5.8km2. Of this area, 2.43km2 or 41.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.11km2 or 36.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.22km2 or 21.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.05km2 or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.1% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.8%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.2% of the area Out of the forested land, 34.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 24.1% is used for growing crops and 15.9% is pastures, while 1.9% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.The municipality is located in the Olten district, on a terrace through which the Aare river has eroded a number of channels. It consists of the village of Gretzenbach, the settlement of Weid and, since 1973, the former municipality of Grod.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent a Fir Tree Vert trunked proper issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the second.