Samedan
Samedan (, ) is a town and municipality in the Maloja Region in the Swiss canton of Grisons. It is served by Samedan railway station on the Rhaetian Railway network and by the Samedan Airport. History Samedan is first mentioned in 1137–1139 as Samadene, and in 1156 as Samadn. For 1288 there is evidence of a residential tower in the upper part of the village. In 1462 Samedan became the seat of lower jurisdiction. In the Swabian War of 1499, the village burned down. In 1551 the parish of Samedan, one of three large parishes in the Upper Engadin, converted to Protestantism. From the 16th century onwards, some families, especially the von Salis and von Planta, became very wealthy and had magnificent houses built in the village. They owed their financial success, among other things, to their political offices, but also to emigration and mercenary service abroad. In the 19th century, trade and commerce developed earlier and faster in Samedan than anywhere else in the Engadin. Tourism began circa 1830: Hotels were built, mountains were climbed for the first time, and English tourists had an English church erected in 1872 (it was demolished in 1965). A golf course was built in 1893; the Muottas-Muragl-Bahn (a funicular railway) was constructed in 1907. The first power station was built in 1888 and a major hospital in 1895. Banks and a printer settled in Samedan. In 1903 the town was connected to the Rhaetian Railway; it soon became the most important railway junction in the Engadin. The airfield was opened in 1937; the Protestant school, today's Academia Engiadina, in 1943. On 1 October 1943, Samedan was mistakenly bombed by American planes. Luckily, nobody was hurt. From the 1980s, the formerly Romansh farming village developed into a modern service centre, in which German speakers outnumber Romansh speakers. Geography Samedan has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 15.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 9.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and 72.9% is unproductive land. Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by . Before 2017, the municipality was located in the Oberengadin sub-district of the Maloja district in the central Oberengadin valley along the Inn river. After 2017 it was part of the Maloja Region. It consists of the village of Samedan and the hamlet of Punt Muragl, the upper section of the Val Bever as well as an exclave that includes nearly the entire Val Roseg, a valley surrounded by the highest mountains of the canton: Piz Bernina, Piz Scerscen and Piz Roseg. Until 1943 Samedan was known as Samaden. Demographics Samedan has a population () of . , 23.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 3 years (2010–2013) the population has changed at a rate of 1.31%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2013, was 8.3