Muttenz is a municipality with a population of approximately 17,000 in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland. It is located in the district of Arlesheim and next to the city of Basel.
History
Under the Roman Empire a hamlet called Montetum existed, which the Alamanni invaders referred to as Mittenza since the 3rd century CE. At the beginning of the 9th century CE the settlement came into the possession of the bishopric of Strasbourg. In the following centuries various noble families were invested with the fief.
Muttenz is first mentioned around 1225-26 as Muttence. In 1277 it was mentioned as Muttenza.
In 1306 the village became the property of the Münch of Münchenstein, who fortified the village church of St. Arbogast with a rampart at the beginning of the 15th century, after their fortresses on the nearby Wartenberg were partially destroyed in the devastating Basle earthquake of 1356. Having fallen on hard times the Münch sold the village and the Wartenberg to the city of Basel in 1517. Following the Protestant Reformation in Basel by Johannes Oecolampadius the church of Muttenz was reformed in 1529.
In 1628 one-seventh of the village population, 112 persons, died of the plague. Many of the villagers, still subjects of the city of Basel, were poor and beginning in the middle of the 18th century, many emigrated to the Americas. In 1790 only were the remaining peasants freed from serfdom by a decision of the Great Council of the city of Basel. Following the French Revolution tithes were abolished. After a short civil war between forces of the city and the countryside in 1833 the canton of Basel was divided into the two half-cantons of Basel-City and Basel-Country. Muttenz became part of Basel-Country and remained a peasant village until the beginning of the 20th century, when it began to grow into the small industrialized town it is today.
Geography
Muttenz has an area, , of . Of this area, or 16.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 40.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 41.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.0% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 8.1% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 14.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 15.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.7% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.2%. Out of the forested land, 38.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 5.6% is used for growing crops and 8.0% is pastures, while 2.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Arlesheim district, east of Basel. The old village center was between the Rütihard and Wartenberg hills. The modern housing and industrial section is along the Rhine.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure, issuant a Castle with three Towers Gules windowed Sable from which a Semi-lion rampant issuant double-queued of the second.
Demographics
Muttenz has a population () of . , 17.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 2.5%.
Most of the population () speaks German (14,642 or 87.9%), with Italian language being second most common (648 or 3.9%) and French being third (254 or 1.5%). There are 18 people who speak Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.5% male and 51.5% female. The population was made up of 14,171 Swiss citizens (81.8% of the population), and 3,159 non-Swiss residents (18.2%) Of the population in the municipality 4,137 or about 24.8% were born in Muttenz and lived there in 2000. There were 2,333 or 14.0% who were born in the same canton, while 6,531 or 39.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,136 or 18.8% were born outside of Switzerland.