Rafzerfeld

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The four communities of the Rafzerfeld

The Rafzerfeld is a plain several square kilometers in the north of the Swiss canton of Zurich .

history

The area includes the municipalities of Wasterkingen , Hüntwangen , Wil and Rafz from west to east , and lies north of the Rhine . It came to Zurich with the high courts in 1651, as the Counts of Sulz felt compelled to pay off their debts to the Zurichers by relinquishing part of their sovereignty in the Klettgau . This is a rare case of the sale of Reichsboden to Switzerland. In 1656 the upper Klettgau was also sold to the city of Schaffhausen .

geology

The Rafzerfeld geologically represents the sands of a large alpine glacier , which is why the layers of gravel are several dozen meters thick. Several gravel plants mine this raw material.

nature

Gravel pit in the Rafzerfeld, in the background Wil

In the Rafzerfeld there are a number of nature conservation projects that want to restore the original biodiversity . Farmers, gravel pit owners and nature conservation associations work together on these projects. The association Natur vom Puur , founded in 1996, initiates networking projects with which the dissemination and settlement of sophisticated plants and animals is to be promoted by means of ecological compensation areas, colorful fallow land and special seeds . In 2003 the Office for Landscape and Nature of the Canton of Zurich approved the Rafzerfeld networking project. The gravel extraction has created new habitats for plants and animals. The recultivation of the gravel pits makes it possible to set up special biotopes with poor and dry meadows or gravel areas. In the Rafzerfeld, in addition to a diverse flora, the skylark , the little ringed plover , sand martins , the golden hammer and the brown hare can be observed.

literature

  • Hans Hofer: Economic and settlement geography of the Rafzerfeld and its adjoining areas , in: Mitteilungen der Geographisch-Ethnographische Gesellschaft Zürich, Volume 40, 1939–1940, pp. 1–136 + plates ( digitized version )

Newspapers

The Schaffhauser free newspaper Schaffhauser Bock has been publishing a local edition for the Rafzerfeld since September 2017. To do this, on the first four pages he exchanges the contents of the normal edition with those that specifically relate to the Rafzerfeld and the lower Schaffhausen canton .

Web links

Commons : Rafzerfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files