Wittenbach (St. Gallen)

Geschichte

Wittenbach is a municipality in the Wahlkreis (constituency) of St. Gallen in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.HistoryWittenbach is first mentioned in 1297 as Witebach.GeographyWittenbach has an area, of 12.3km2. Of this area, 58% is used for agricultural purposes, while 20.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 19.5% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (1.5%) is non-productive (rivers or lakes).The municipality consists of the village sections Wittenbach, Kronbühl, Bruggwaldpark as well as scattered settlements and the exclave of Hinterberg.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules three Willows Argent issuant from a Base wavy Azure and on it a bar wavy of the second.DemographicsWittenbach has a population of., about 21.4% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Of the foreign population, 176 are from Germany, 264 are from Italy, 829 are from ex-Yugoslavia, 87 are from Austria, 115 are from Turkey, and 322 are from another country. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 6.5%. Most of the population speaks German (87.8%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common ( 2.8%) and Albanian being third ( 2.5%). Of the Swiss national languages, 7,448 speak German, 31 people speak French, 170 people speak Italian, and 8 people speak Romansh.