The canton of Uri ( ; ; ; ) is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and a founding member of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in Central Switzerland. The canton's territory covers the valley of the Reuss between the St. Gotthard Pass and Lake Lucerne.
The official language of Uri is Swiss Standard German, but the main spoken dialect is the Alemannic Swiss German called .
Uri was once the only canton whose children in school had to learn Italian as their first foreign language, but in the school year of 2005/2006, that was changed to English, as in other Central and Northeastern Swiss cantons. The canton's population is about 35,000, of which 3,046 (or 8.7%) are foreigners.
The legendary William Tell is said to have hailed from Uri. The historical landmark Rütli lies within the canton of Uri.
Name
The name of the valley is first mentioned in the 8th or 9th century, in the Latinized form of Uronia.
In the medieval period, the name referred not to the entire Reuss valley but just to Altdorf and the surrounding settlements and estates. The extension of the name to a larger territory is the result of the territorial expansion of the canton in the 15th century. However, usage of Uri as referring to Altdorf remained current.
From the 13th century onward, the German form of the name is recorded as Ure(n). The modern form Uri dates to the 16th century.
The name has been derived from either Latin ora "brim, edge, margin" (reflected as Rumantsch ur), or from a pre-Roman hydronym containing the PIE root u̯er "water", in either case extended by a suffix in -n-. Both etymologies would refer to the Reuss and/or the shore of Lake Lucerne. The -n- suffix was reduced to an ending in -n in Middle High German, and the ending -n in the German toponym was lost only in early modern German (remaining visible in the demonym Urner).
There is a long-standing popular etymology associating the name with ûr, the German name of the aurochs. This tradition may date as far back as the Middle High German period, reflected in the introduction of the cantonal seal showing a bull's head in the 13th century. Beginning in the 17th century, the bull of Uri (Uristier) came to be associated with the name of the Taurisci in learned speculation.
In 853, Uri is granted to the Fraumünster abbey in Zürich by Louis the German.
Parts of the Urseren were settled by Disentis Abbey and were part of the Diocese of Chur. By the 10th century, there were settlements of Romansh speakers from Disentis in the high valleys. Over the following decades, the Confederacy expanded into the , now representing a regional power with the potential to challenge Habsburg hegemony. The Confederacy decisively defeated Habsburg in the Battle of Sempach 1386, opening the way to further territorial expansion.
Following the victory at Sempach, Uri began a program of territorial expansion to allow them to control the entire Gotthard route. As a first step, Uri annexed the Urseren valley in 1410, although the community of Urseren was allowed to retain its own assembly and courts.
In 1403, Uri began to acquire its transmontane bailiwicks, with the help of Obwalden taking the Leventina valley from the duke of Milan. The conflict between the Swiss Confederacy and the Duchy of Milan for territories now forming canton of Ticino continued throughout the 15th century. The conflict was decided in 1500, when the Confederates captured Bellinzona, heavily fortifying it against future conquests. The Confederates also acquired Lugano in 1512, but the period of territorial expansion came to its end in 1515 with the Confederate defeat at Marignano.
Uri, along with Central Switzerland as a whole, resisted the Swiss Reformation and remained staunchly Roman Catholic. As the Reformation spread through the Swiss Confederation, the five central, catholic cantons felt increasingly isolated and they began to search for allies. After two months of negotiations, the Five Cantons formed (the Christian Alliance) with Ferdinand of Austria on 22 April 1529. After the Battle at Kappel of 1531, in which was killed, the Confederacy was on the point of fracturing along confessional lines. The peace treaty after the Kappel war established that each canton would choose which religion to follow, but peace between Catholic and Protestant cantons remained brittle throughout the early modern period.
Growth of Uri stagnated in the early modern period, due to the limited availability of arable land, as well as disease and crop failures. Plague broke out in the canton in 1348–49, 1517–18, 1574–75 and 1629. In 1742–43 and again 1770–71, crop failures combined with cattle diseases led to starvation and mass emigration. The consequences for the population were severe, in 1743 Uri had 9,828 inhabitants, but by the end of the 18th Century there were only 9,464 people.
The Christian Democratic Party (CVP) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) have dominated politics in Uri during the 20th century.
Flag and coat of arms
[[File:Uristier Sempacher Banner.jpg|thumb|Historical banner, traditionally dated to the Battle of Sempach (1386), kept in the town-hall of Altdorf.
The use of the bull's head as heraldic charge may be due to a popular etymology associating the canton's name with the name of the aurochs.
Demographics
Uri has a population () of . , 9.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of −0.4%. Migration accounted for −1.2%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.3%. Most of the population () speaks German (32,518 or 93.5%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (677 or 1.9%) and Italian is the third (462 or 1.3%). There are 67 people who speak French and 51 people who speak Romansh.
, there were 13,430 private households in the canton, and an average of 2.5 persons per household.
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{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"
! colspan="12" | Historic Population Data
Of the working population, 12.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 48.5% used a private car.
Tourism is a major industry in the Canton of Uri. In , there were 91 hotels in the canton with a total of 1,368 rooms. During the same year 145,600 guests stayed in those hotels and 67.1% were from outside Switzerland.
The Canton of Uri is named as erstwhile home of "Heinz the Baron Claus Von Espy" in American 2003 movie, "Intolerable Cruelty", produced by the Coen Brothers.
Politics
Federal election
In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the SVP/UDC which received 44.1% of the vote. The next most popular parties were the CVP/PDC/PPD/PCD with 26.8% and the GPS/PES with 26.3%.
The FDP lost about 13.0% of the vote when compared to the 2007 Federal election (87.3% in 2007 vs 74.3% in 2011). The SP/PS moved from below fourth place in 2007 to second.
Federal election results
{| class="wikitable sortable" style ="text-align: center"
|-
! colspan="16"| Percentage of the total vote per party in the canton in the Federal Elections 1971-2015
|-
! colspan="2" | Party !! class="unsortable" | Ideology !! 1971 !! 1975 !! 1979 !! 1983 !! 1987 !! 1991 !! 1995 !! 1999 !! 2003 !! 2007 !! 2011 !! 2015 !! 2019
|-
! FDP.The Liberals
| bgcolor=""| || Classical liberalism || 95.2 || 76.0 || 39.0 || 84.7 || 85.5 || 93.2 || 86.0 || 81.7 || 36.6 || 87.3 || 74.3 || * || *
|-
! CVP/PDC/PPD/PCD
| bgcolor=""| || Christian democracy || * || 18.6 || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 26.8 || 39.2
|-
! SP/PS
| bgcolor=""| || Social democracy || * || * || 23.0 || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 21.5 || * || 22.3
|-
! SVP/UDC
| bgcolor=""| || Swiss nationalism || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 31.3 || * || * || 44.1 || 36.3
|-
! GPS/PES
| bgcolor=""| || Green politics || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 30.6 || * || * || 26.3 || *
|-
! FPS/PSL
| bgcolor=""| || Right-wing populism || * || * || * || * || 1.7 || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || *
|-
! Other
| || || 4.8 || 5.4 || 38.0 || 15.3 || 12.8 || 6.8 || 14.0 || 18.3 || 1.5 || 12.7 || 4.3 || 2.8 || 2.2
|-
! Voter participation % || || || 56.1 || 47.3 || 56.2 || 30.0 || 46.2 || 34.6 || 39.7 || 36.3 || 44.4 || 24.1 || 49.8 || 57.1 || 45.9
|-
|}
: FDP before 2009, FDP.The Liberals after 2009
: "*" indicates that the party was not on the ballot in this canton.
Cantonal election
In the last election, on 8 March 2020, saw the centre maintain its dominance of the Landsrat. The Christian Democrats (CVP) gained three seats and remained the largest party with 25 seats. The Swiss People's Party lost two seats to remain the third strongest party, while the FDP.The Liberals who had lost two seats remained second with 16. The coalition of the Social Democratic and the Green retained its 9 seats and remained the smallest fraction in the Landrat.
The evolving party membership in the Landrat is shown in the following chart (for selected dates):