Elm, Switzerland

Elm (Romansh:  Dialma ) is a village, and former municipality, in the municipality of Glarus Süd and canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Elm lies in the valley of the Sernf river, and consists of the village of Elm itself, and the hamlets of Sulzbach, Schwändi, Müsli, Untertal, Vogelsang, Töniberg, Obmoos, Steinibach and Wald.

History

Elm is first mentioned in 1344 as Elme.

The baths at Wichlen were in use since the middle ages and are first mentioned in 1547. They were very popular until they were buried by an avalanche in 1762. Many characteristic wooden structures have survived.

In 1799, Russian General Alexander Suvorov and his troops stayed the night in Elm before crossing Panix Pass to Pigniu on their retreat into Austria.

By 1861, slate quarrying was taking place. On September 11, 1881, an avalanche caused by excessive quarrying of slate killed 114 and buried 83 structures in the municipality.

In 1892, the owner of a spring in Elm that had long been hailed as beneficial was found to be rich in iron. The owner opened a bath house and sold the water bottled in demijohns, but the bath house was destroyed in an avalanche in 1907. In 1898, a new Kurhaus was opened, which flourished until World War I. Today, it is used as a retirement centre. In 1929, the company Mineralquellen Elm AG was founded to bottle the spring water, and this continues to this day.

Switzerland

Switzerland (/ˈswɪtsərlənd/), officially the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a country in Europe. While still named the "Swiss Confederation" for historical reasons, modern Switzerland is a federal directorial republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities, called Bundesstadt ("federal city"). The country is situated in Western and Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km² (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found: among them are the two global and economic centres, Zürich and Geneva.

The establishment of the Swiss Confederation is traditionally dated to 1 August 1291, which is celebrated annually as the Swiss National Day. The country has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. Nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to numerous international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association, but notably it is not part of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area. However the country does participate in the Schengen Area and the EU's single market through a number of bilateral treaties.

Switzerland (software)

Switzerland is an open source network-monitoring utility developed and released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Its goal is to monitor network traffic between two systems running the program to see if the user's internet service provider is violating network neutrality, like Comcast does with the BitTorrent protocol.

Switzerland was featured in the Technology section of an issue of New Scientist in August 2008.

See also

References

External links

Switzerland (disambiguation)

Switzerland is a country in Europe.

Switzerland may also refer to: