Fieschertal

Fieschertal is a village and municipality in the district of Goms in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Besides the village of Fieschertal, the municipality includes the nearby hamlets of Wichul, Zer Flie and Wirbul. Fieschertal is first mentioned in 1351 as vallis de Vies. The village of Fieschertal is located in the valley of the Wysswasser, a tributary of the Rhone that drains the Fiescher glacier. In addition to the village, the municipality includes a number of nearby hamlets, including Wichul, Zer Flie and Wirbul. However, most of the municipality's area comprises sparsely inhabited high mountain landscape and is heavily glaciated, including most of the Aletsch glacier and its tributary glaciers, together with the whole of the Fiescher glacier. The mountains of the Jungfrau, Mönch, Fiescherhorn, Agassizhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Oberaarhorn, Wasenhorn, Grunhorn, Wannenhorn, Eggishorn, Aletschhorn, Mittaghorn and Gletscherhorn are all either within or on the boundary of the municipality, as is the Märjelen lake. The Jungfraujoch, with the Top of Europe tourist attraction, lies just inside the northern boundary of the municipality, but access is exclusively from communities to the north. Fieschertal has an area, , of . Of this area, 3.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.1% is settled (buildings or roads) and 94.7% is unproductive land. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per fess Or a rose Gules slipped and leaved Vert centered of the first and Vert on a pile chevronny Azure and Argent a pallet wavy of the last. Fieschertal has a population () of . , 4.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 7%. It has changed at a rate of 4.1% due to migration and at a rate of -1.5% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks German (251 or 98.4%) as their first language, Dutch is the second-most common (2 or 0.8%) and French and Italian are the third (1 or 0.4% each).