Menznau

Geschichte

Menznau is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.On February 27, 2013, a gunman opened fire in a Kronospan wood-processing plant, killing three.HistoryMenznau is first mentioned in 1185 as Menzenowa.GeographyMenznau has an area, of 30.4km2. Of this area, 59.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 34.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 5.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.6%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains)., 34.71% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 56.38% is used for farming or pastures, while 2.79% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 2.3% is covered with buildings, 0.62% is industrial, 0.33% is classed as special developments, 0.13% is parks or greenbelts and 2.01% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 0.1% is unproductive standing water (ponds or lakes), 0.39% is unproductive flowing water (rivers) and 0.23% is other unproductive land. It consists of the village sections of Menznau, Geiss and Menzberg. The municipality's lake, the Tuetenseeli, and its bog are a nature preserve.DemographicsMenznau has a population of., 189 or about 6.8% are not Swiss citizens. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -3.1%. Most of the population speaks German (94.0%), with Albanian being second most common ( 2.9%) and Serbo-Croatian being third ( 1.3%).In the 2007 election the most popular party was the CVP which received 45.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (25.7%), the FDP (21.2%) and the Green Party (3.2%).