Freienbach

Freienbach is a municipality in Höfe District in the canton of Schwyz in Switzerland. Freienbach is first mentioned in 972 as Friginbach. Freienbach has an area, , of . Of this area, 40.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 23.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 31% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (4.5%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality is located on Lake Zurich and stretches from the lake (elevation ) to the Etzel mountain (elevation ). It consists of the villages of Freienbach, Pfäffikon (not to be confused with Pfäffikon in the canton of Zurich), Wilen, Bäch, Hurden (located on the Seedamm) and the two islands of Lützelau and Ufenau (Ufnau). Freienbach has a population (as of ) of . , 23.2% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 23.8%. Most of the population () speaks German (87.9%), with Italian being second most common (2.3%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (2.0%). the gender distribution of the population was 50.6% male and 49.4% female. The age distribution, , in Freienbach is; 2,963 people or 22.7% of the population is between 0 and 19. 4,174 people or 32.0% are 20 to 39, and 4,432 people or 33.9% are 40 to 64. The senior population distribution is 977 people or 7.5% are 65 to 74. There are 407 people or 3.1% who are 70 to 79 and 102 people or 0.78% of the population who are over 80. there are 5,558 households, of which 1,653 households (or about 29.7%) contain only a single individual. 274 or about 4.9% are large households, with at least five members. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 44.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (19%), the SPS (16.3%) and the CVP (15%). In Freienbach about 74.7% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Freienbach has an unemployment rate of 1.7%.