Opfikon

Geschichte

Opfikon<ref name="ks/gs">Andres Kristol/Gabrielle Schmid, Opfikon ZH in: Dictionnaire toponymique des communes suisses – Lexikon der schweizerischen Gemeindenamen – Dizionario toponomastico dei comuni svizzeri , Centre de dialectologie, Université de Neuchâtel, Verlag Huber, Frauenfeld/Stuttgart/Wien 2005, and Éditions Payot, Lausanne 2005, p. 680f. is the name of a municipality in the Swiss canton of Zürich, located in the district of Bülach.Coat of armsBlazon: Party per fess gules and argent, in chief a half length portrait of a man wearing a coat sable with a white collar, in base cross pattee sable.GeographyOpfikon is situated right to the northeast of the city of Zürich in the Glatt Valley, near Zürich Airport, and thus lies within the greater Zürich area. As it belongs to the region known as the Zurichois Lowlands (Zürcher Unterland), the landscape is rather flat. The lowest point lies 420.4 m above sea level at the border to the neighboring commune of Rümlang, the highest one in the Hard forest, 481 m above sea level. 37% of the municipal territory is covered by settlement area, 17% by wood, 27% by farming ground, 17.6% by transport infrastructures and 1.2% by waters.Historical overviewThe present municipality traces back to two settlements, one of which is Opfikon itself, situated right from the river Glatt, whereas on the other side of it lies Oberhusen. Glattbrugg, as its name (‚bridge over the Glatt’) suggests, originally was not a settlement, but a passage of some importance. However, the name was later also used for a smithy and a mill that were built near the bridge at the left-hand riverbank, and round which eventually developed another settlement.