Gettnau

Gettnau is a municipality in the district of Willisau in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.

History

Gettnau is first mentioned in the 9th Century as Kepinhouva.

Geography

Gettnau has an area, as of 2006, of 6 km² (2.3 sq mi). Of this area, 53% is used for agricultural purposes, while 36.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.5%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).In the 1997 land survey, 37.13% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 50.17% is used for farming or pastures, while 2.48% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 2.97% is covered with buildings, 2.15% is industrial, 0.66% is classed as special developments, and 3.96% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 0.33% is unproductive flowing water (rivers) and 0.17% is other unproductive land.

The municipality is located at the entrance to the Luthern valley.

Demographics

Gettnau has a population (as of 31 December 2014) of 1,088.As of 2007, 129 or about 13.1% are not Swiss citizens. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -4.6%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (89.0%), with Albanian being second most common ( 5.2%) and Portuguese being third ( 1.4%).