Appoint

State :

Switzerland

Canton :

Valais (VS)

District :

Goms

BFS no. :

6056

Postal code :

3995

Coordinates :

654 477 / 138983 coordinates: 46 ° 24 '0 " N , 8 ° 8' 49" O ; CH1903: six hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred and seventy-seven / 138983

Height :

1196 m above sea level M.

Height range :

867-3173 m above sea level M.

Area :

35.37 km²

Residents:

492 (December 31, 2018)

Population density :

14 inhabitants per km²

Website:

www.ernen.ch

Ernen VS

Location of the municipality

Ernen ( Valais German Äärne [æːrnə] , French Aragnon ) is a municipality and a civic community with a civic council in the Goms district in the Swiss canton of Valais . The place also forms a parish of the deanery Ernen .

geography

Historic aerial photo by Werner Friedli from 1955

Winter in Ernen VS

Church of Ernen with the Finsteraarhorn in the background

Three pillars of the gallows from 1702

The municipality of Ernen is located in Goms on the left side of the upper Rhone Valley . Since the merger in spring 2005, their territory has consisted of the former municipalities of Ausserbinn , Ernen, Mühlebach and Steinhaus . The former municipality of Ernen itself, to which the hamlet of Niederernen belonged since 1872, still had 385 inhabitants at the end of 2000. Ernen is part of the Binntal regional nature park .

history

Ernen was first mentioned in 1214 as Aragnon ; today's sound is first attested in 1510 as Ärnen . The origin of the name is uncertain, perhaps it means "(land, property) of Aranius".

The place was conveniently located between the Albrun , Gries , Furka and Grimsel passes and benefited from this location for centuries as a trading center. The area was already settled in the Latène period, as shown by grave finds. In the High Middle Ages the Goms was subordinate to the Meiertum von Ernen, first mentioned in 1135 , in the late Middle Ages the Zenden Goms was divided into the majorates of Ernen and Münster . Along with Münster, Ernen was also one of the two large parishes in Goms. However, the highest jurisdiction was always with Ernen. Three pillars of the gallows from 1702 have been preserved to this day ( Lage )46.40338 8.1476 .

The construction of the modern road (Furkastrasse 1860–1861) and the railway line (Furka Railway 1914) on the other side of the valley put the town on the sidelines in terms of traffic and led to an economic decline.

In 1974 the Hungarian pianist György Sebök started offering masterclasses for pianists and chamber musicians in Ernen in the summer. Since then the place has been called " Music Village ". In 1987 this offer was expanded to include the chamber music series “Festival of the Future”. Other events were added: a series of baroque concerts, a writing seminar with Donna Leon , a workshop on “Biographical Writing” and other things, so that Ernen has a rich cultural program to offer in the summer half-year.

population

Population development
year	1850	1900	1950	2000	2016
Residents	414	355	299	385	509

Attractions

Particularly worth seeing are the church of St. George , first mentioned in a document in 1214 and rebuilt from 1510 to 1518 , the chapel Maria Hilf (1690–1709) and in the Niederernen district, the chapel of St. Anthony of Padua , built in 1684 . Ernen received the Henry Louis Wakker Prize in 1979 as an award for the particularly beautiful and well-preserved village image.

Examples of the former wealth of the community are striking buildings such as the town hall (1762), the Tellenhaus (1578), the Kapuzinerhaus (1511), the school house (1538), the Mathäus-Schiner-Haus (1603), the St. Georg House (1629), the Sigristen-Jost House (1580). The outside of the Tellenhaus shows Tell frescoes depicting the apple shot, said to be the oldest in Switzerland.

These houses are around the village square of Ernen:

St. Georg House
Tellenhaus
Zendenrathaus
Capuchin house and old school house
Village square in Ernen

traffic

Ernen can be reached by public transport from Brig with the Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn to Fiesch and from there by post bus .

Personalities

Walter Supersaxo (around 1402–1482), 1441–1457 pastor of Ernen, 1457–1482 bishop of Sitten
Georg Supersaxo (around 1450–1529), politician, opponent of Bishop Matthäus Schiner
György Sebők (1922–1999), Hungarian pianist and piano teacher, who founded the later Music Village Ernen Festival in 1974 and is the third honorary citizen in the history of Ernen

literature

Edwin Pfaffen: Appoint. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2017 .
Walter Ruppen: Appoint . In: Society for Swiss Art History (Hrsg.): Kunstdenkmäler der Schweiz (= Vol. 67 ). Untergoms Vol. 2. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1979, ISBN 3-7643-1080-4 , p. 7-109 .
Roland Flückiger-Seiler and Benno Mutter: Ernen and surroundings . (Swiss Art Guide, 581/582). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1995, ISBN 3-85782-581-2 .

Web links

Commons : Ernen - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Permanent and non-permanent resident population by year, canton, district, municipality, population type and gender (permanent resident population). In: bfs. admin.ch . Federal Statistical Office (FSO), August 31, 2019, accessed on December 22, 2019 .
^ Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland , Volume V 1b.
↑ Edwin Pfaffen: Ernen. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz ., Accessed on May 2, 2014
↑ Lexicon of Swiss municipality names . Edited by the Center de Dialectologie at the University of Neuchâtel under the direction of Andres Kristol. Frauenfeld / Lausanne 2005, p. 332.

[1] Permanent and non-permanent resident population by year, canton, district, municipality, population type and gender (permanent resident population). In: bfs. admin.ch . Federal Statistical Office (FSO), August 31, 2019, accessed on December 22, 2019 .

[2] Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland , Volume V 1b.

[3] Edwin Pfaffen: Ernen. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz ., Accessed on May 2, 2014

[4] Lexicon of Swiss municipality names . Edited by the Center de Dialectologie at the University of Neuchâtel under the direction of Andres Kristol. Frauenfeld / Lausanne 2005, p. 332.