Poschiavo

Poschiavo (Poschiavo, Pusciaaf, Puschlav, Puschlav) is a municipality in the Bernina Region in the canton of Grisons in Switzerland. Poschiavo is first mentioned in 824 as in Postclave though this comes from a later copy of the original document. In 1140 it was mentioned as de Pusclauio. It was formerly known by the German name of Puschlav. It owes its beauty to the imposing Renaissance style of its courtly 19th century architecture. These palazzi were built by prosperous local residents who had made their fortune abroad, particularly in Spain. Poschiavo has an area, , of . Of this area, 19.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 32.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (46.2%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). Until 2017, the municipality was located in the Poschiavo sub-district of the Bernina district, after 2017 it was part of the new Bernina Region. It is located in the Val Poschiavo, one of the four valleys of the Italian Graubünden, where the official language is Italian. The other valleys are Val Bregaglia, Mesolcina and Calanca. It consists of the village of Poschiavo and numerous hamlets. Poschiavo has its own lake, called Lago di Poschiavo, which is located to the south of the village. Poschiavo's only direct connection to Engadin and the rest of Switzerland is over the Bernina Pass. The town is connected by the Hauptstrasse 29 road over the pass and a Rhätische Bahn (RhB) station on the Bernina Railway between St. Moritz and Tirano. There are a total of seven other railway stations along the Bernina line in the municipality: , , , , , , and . Poschiavo has a population (as of ) of ; as of 2008, 8.2% of the population was made up of foreign nationals and, over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of −3.6%. In 2000 the gender distribution of the population was 49.1% male and 50.9% female; while the age distribution, is: 332 people or 10.3% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old; 222 people or 6.