Matzendorf

Geschichte

Matzendorf is a municipality in the district of Thal in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.HistoryMatzendorf is first mentioned in 968 as Mazendorf though this comes from an 11th Century copy of the earlier document. In 1227 it was mentioned as apud Macindorf.GeographyMatzendorf has an area, of 11.25km2. Of this area, 4.58km2 or 40.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 5.81km2 or 51.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.88km2 or 7.8% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.02km2 or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.6%. Out of the forested land, 50.0% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 18.0% is used for growing crops and 17.2% is pastures, while 1.3% is used for orchards or vine crops and 4.1% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.The municipality is located in the Thal district, in the Dünnern valley. It consists of the haufendorf village (an irregular, unplanned and quite closely packed village, built around a central square) of Matzendorf and the hamlet of Mühli.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Argent two Angle Plates in Saltire counterchanged.DemographicsMatzendorf has a population of., 4.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 0.2%.