Spiss (Tyrol)

Spit
coat of arms	Austria map
Basic data
Country:	Austria
State :	Tyrol
Political District :	Landeck
License plate :	LA
Surface:	24.61 km²
Coordinates :	46 ° 58 '  N , 10 ° 26'  E Coordinates: 46 ° 57 '33 "  N , 10 ° 25' 53"  E
Height :	1628  m above sea level A.
Residents :	104 (January 1, 2020)
Postal code :	6544
Area code :	05474
Community code :	7 06 25
Address of the municipal administration:	Spiss 20 6544 Spiss
Website:	www.spiss.tirol.gv.at
politics
Mayor :	Alois Jäger (TBB)
Municipal Council : (2016) (9 members)	9 Tiroler Bauernbund - TBB
Location of Spiss in the Landeck district
View from Oberspiss to Mittelspiss with the Expositurkirche
Source: Municipal data from Statistics Austria

Spiss ( Romansh Spescha ^{? / I} ) is a municipality with 104 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) in the Landeck district in the state of Tyrol ( Austria ). Spiss is 1628  m above sea level. A. the highest municipality in Austria and is part of the Landeck judicial district .

geography

Spiss in the Samnaun valley on the border with the Swiss canton of Graubünden (municipality of Samnaun ) is one of the smallest municipalities in Austria in terms of population. The scattered settlement of several hamlets and exposed slopes extends in the area along the Spisser Landesstraße, which leads from Pfunds to Samnaun.

Neighboring communities

Two of the four neighboring communities are in the Landeck district, two in Switzerland.

	lake
Samnaun (Canton of Graubünden)		Pfunds
	Valsot (Canton of Graubünden)

history

In Roman times, Spiss belonged to the province of Raetia , which is still indicated today in Rhaeto-Romanic place and field names. In the uppermost Inn Valley and in Vinschgau , the Rhaeto-Romanic language was spoken until the 15th century, in Samnaun until the 19th century, but this was then given up in favor of a Bavarian- Tyrolean dialect. The name "Spiss" is derived from the Latin word "spissus", which means thicket, scrub.

The first settlers probably came to the valley around 1000, but there is no historical evidence. Spiss was first mentioned in a document from 1302, when it was still part of the Nauders community . It was not until 1547 that Spiss became an independent municipality.

In 1621, in the course of the Thirty Years' War, Austrian troops invaded the Engadin , after which a year later the Engadins plundered and burned the village in a campaign of revenge. Spiss had to hand over part of its municipality to Tschlin in Switzerland .

In the 1960s and 1970s, basic amalgamations were carried out, access routes laid out and building sites developed in order to counteract migration.

The impassable gorge on the Schalklbach , which forms the border between Austria and Switzerland, has long been a traffic obstacle; only a narrow mule track led from the Inn Valley to Spiss. The main connection was via Samnaun. Only the expansion of the Spisser Landesstraße in 1980, which was also co-financed by the municipality of Samnaun, brought better accessibility. Spiss now has a connection on the purely Austrian side, which is much more avalanche-proof than the road on the Swiss side and therefore also benefits Samnaun.

Until the end of 1920, Spiss was part of the judicial district of Nauders , which was dissolved as a result of the First World War and added to the judicial district of Ried in Tyrol . Since 1978 the municipality has been part of the Landeck judicial district.

coat of arms

Blazon : golden-armored red eagle head growing out of green bushes in silver.

The colors of the municipality flag are green and red.

The coat of arms, awarded in 1991, symbolizes the place name (“thicket”, “undergrowth”) with the bushes and emphasizes with the head of the Tyrolean eagle that it has belonged to Tyrol for centuries despite the border location and the seclusion.

Culture and sights

Expositurkirche hl. John the Baptist

See also:  List of listed objects in Spiss

• Expositurkirche hl. John the Baptist with a cemetery and a war memorial
• Chapel of St. Martin in the hamlet of Gstalda ( Rhaeto-Romanic Chas-chada ^{? / I} )
• Spissegger chapel on a rock outcrop above the Schergenbach

economy

Two thirds of the residents commute daily to the duty-free area and Samnaun ski area, which as the Silvretta-Samnaun winter sports area (connected to Ischgl ) offers many jobs. In addition, there is modest agriculture and a few tourist businesses in the catchment area of ​​Samnaun.

Web links

Commons : Spiss  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• 70625 - Spiss. Community data, Statistics Austria .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Law Gazette for Tyrol, no. 83/1991. Digitized
2. ↑ Coat of arms of Tyrol, Landeck district