Magadino is a former municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.
On 25 April 2010, the former municipalities of Caviano, Contone, Gerra Gambarogno, Indemini, Magadino, Piazzogna, San Nazzaro, Sant'Abbondio and Vira Gambarogno merged in the new municipality of Gambarogno.
History
Magadino is first mentioned in 1254 as de Magadino. It was also previously known, in German, as Megadin though this name is no longer used.
During the Late Middle Ages the village was mentioned when certain feudal rights were transferred from the Bishop of Como to the Capitanei of Locarno transferred. Until 1342, these rights included the right to collect tolls on goods traveling through the area. The village of Quartino was, in the 11th to 16th century, a Benedictine priory. The priory of St. George belonged to the abbey of S. Benigno di Fruttuaria in Piedmont, then to S. Gemolo di Ganna in Lombardy. In the 17th century the monastic estates came to the hospital in Locarno.
Together with the villages of Quartino and Orgnana, Magadino belonged to the parish of S. Pietro in Vira, until it became an independent parish in 1846. The church of San Carlo was built in 1844–46.
The Codice delle strade di Como (1335) mentions a tower in Magadino, though no trace of the tower has been found. A castle is also mentioned in a chronicle from the 17th century, but it is also lost. The chronicle says it was built in 1365 on the orders of Galeazzo Visconti for the inhabitants of Locarno and destroyed in 1518 by the Swiss.
Magadino was a major port and an important customs station at the transit route north from Lombardy to the cities of the Alps, and its importance grew in 1515 after the collapse of the bridge over the Ticino river at Bellinzona. With the introduction of regular steamship traffic (1826) and the opening of the road over the Gotthard Pass (1830) Magadino became a stop on the coach routes. Many new warehouses, hotels and restaurants were built, some of which are still visible today. The decline of the port began with the opening of the railway lines to Locarno (1874) and Luino (1882). The town stagnated between the 1880s until the 1960s. In 2000, the majority of the population worked outside the village. In 2005, almost half of the jobs were in the services sector.
Geography
Magadino has an area, , of . Of this area, or 31.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 58.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 16.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.9% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.8% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 2.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 8.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.7%. Out of the forested land, 55.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 22.0% is used for growing crops, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops and 8.0% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the village, 1.4% is in lakes and 0.6% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 1.8% is unproductive vegetation.
The village is located in the Locarno district, on the banks of the Riviera del Gambarogno. The municipality includes a nature preserve. The Bolle marsh between the mouths of the Verzasca and Ticino rivers. It consists of the village of Magadino and the hamlets of Quartino and Orgnana.
The neighboring villages are Contone and Vira (Gambarogno).
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Barry wavy of six argent and azure overall an anchor or. The anchor refers to Magadino's harbor on Lake Maggiore.
Demographics
, Magadino had a population of 1,604. , 21.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997-2007) the population has changed at a rate of 5.9%.
Most of the population () speaks Italian (82.0%), with German being second most common (11.3%) and French being third (1.5%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 170 speak German, 23 people speak French, 1,229 people speak Italian. The remainder (77 people) speak another language.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.0% male and 52.0% female. The population was made up of 598 Swiss men (35.4% of the population), and 212 (12.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 712 Swiss women (42.2%), and 166 (9.8%) non-Swiss women.