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Concept
Zermatt
Summary
Zermatt (t͡sɛʁˈmat) is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a year-round population of about 5,800 and is classified as a town by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
It lies at the upper end of Mattertal at an elevation of , at the foot of Switzerland's highest peaks. It lies about from the over high Theodul Pass bordering Italy. Zermatt is the southernmost commune of the German Sprachraum.
Zermatt is famed as a mountaineering and ski resort of the Swiss Alps. Until the mid-19th century, it was predominantly an agricultural community; the first and tragic ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 was followed by a rush on the mountains surrounding the village, leading to the construction of many tourist facilities. The year-round population () is , though there may be several times as many tourists in Zermatt at any one time. Much of the local economy is based on tourism, with about half of the jobs in town in hotels or restaurants and just under half of all apartments are vacation apartments. Just over one-third of the permanent population was born in the town, while another third moved to Zermatt from outside Switzerland.
The name of Zermatt, as well as that of the Matterhorn itself, derives from the alpine meadows, or matten (in German), in the valley. The name appeared first as Zur Matte ("at the meadow") and became later Zermatt. It does not appear until 1495 on a map or 1546 in a text, but may have been employed long before.
Praborno or Prato Borno (Prato also means meadow) are the older names of Zermatt; they appear in the ancient maps as early as the thirteenth century. The Romand-speaking people from the Aosta Valley and from the Romand-speaking part of canton Wallis (Valais) used this name until about 1860 in the form of Praborne, or Praborgne. The reason of this change from Praborno to Zermatt is attributed to the gradual replacement of the Romance-speaking people by German-speaking colony.
Official source
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