Montana (Valais)

Geschichte

Montana is a former municipality in the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It was one of the six municipalities that form the ski resort Crans-Montana (together with Icogne, Lens, Randogne, Mollens and Chermignon). On 1 January 2017 the former municipalities of Chermignon, Mollens (VS), Montana and Randogne merged to form the new municipality of Crans-Montana.HistoryMontana is first mentioned in 1243 as Montana. In 1905 it separated from Lens to form an independent municipality.GeographyMontana had an area, of 4.9km2. Of this area, 1.26km2 or 25.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.08km2 or 42.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.4km2 or 28.6% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.08km2 or 1.6% is either rivers or lakes and 0.1km2 or 2.0% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 15.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 8.2%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.5%. Out of the forested land, 38.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.6% is used for growing crops and 12.5% is pastures, while 10.4% is used for orchards or vine crops and 2.2% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. Of the unproductive areas, and 1.2% is too rocky for vegetation.