Canton of Obwalden or Obwald ( ; ; ; ) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of seven municipalities and the seat of the government and parliament is in Sarnen. It is traditionally considered a "half-canton", the other half being Nidwalden.
Obwalden lies in Central Switzerland and contains the geographical centre of Switzerland. It is bordered by the canton of Lucerne to the north, the canton of Nidwalden and Uri to the east and the canton of Bern to the south. The canton is essentially in the valley of the Sarner Aa south of Lake Lucerne, with an exclave around Engelberg.
It is one of the smallest cantons. The largest town is Sarnen, followed by Kerns and Alpnach.
Together with Nidwalden, Obwalden was part of the forest canton of Unterwalden, one of the three participants in the foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy, named in the Pact of Brunnen of 1315 with Uri and Schwyz. The division of Unterwalden into two separate territories, Nidwalden and Obwalden, appears to have developed over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries.
History
Obwalden is one of the two valleys, along with Nidwalden, that make up Unterwalden. Throughout its history, the political situation and the extent of its independence have varied widely. Between 1291 and 1309, Unterwalden joined the nascent Swiss Confederation. During that time Obwalden was known as Unterwalden ob dem Kernwald and Nidwalden was Unterwalden nit dem Kernwald. Unterwalden's votes in the Tagsatzung were split between the two valleys. Between 1798 and 1803 it became the District of Sarnen in the Canton of Waldstätten. From 1803 until 1999 it was the half-canton of Obwalden. In 1999, the new Federal Constitution eliminated the half-canton designation and made Obwalden a full canton, though they still shared representation in the Council of States and only had half a vote. This alliance is considered the beginning of the Swiss Confederation and modern Switzerland.
The Old Swiss Confederation
thumb|upright|Battle of Morgarten from the [[Tschachtlanchronik of 1470]]
thumb|upright|The Amstalden Affair. The picture shows in the back, under the tree, Peter Amstalden in a conspiratorial meeting to rebel against Lucerne with the support of Obwalden.
Initially, the Eternal Alliance was a mutual defense pact between the three cantons, each of which was independently ruled. In 1304 the two valleys of Obwalden and Nidwalden were joined together under the same local deputy of the count.
In support of their allies, Unterwalden joined the Confederates in the Battle of Morgarten and drove back an invasion of the Brünig Pass. After the decisive Confederation victory over the Habsburgs, Unterwalden renewed the Eternal Alliance in the Pact of Brunnen. During the 14th century, the communities in Obwalden grew increasingly powerful at the expense of the nobility. The formerly powerful Kellner of Sarnen family retired from politics after 1307. The White Book of Sarnen mentions the conquest of the Lower Castle in Sarnen, the home of the family, which may explain why they left politics. The Strättligen and Ringgenberg families married into the Lords of Hunwil and used the power of the dynastic marriages to reduce Habsburg power to a vague suzerainty in the 1330s and 40s, though the Habsburg still owned some land in Obwalden. During the early 14th century, an organization of livestock farmers developed in the Hunwil lands. Throughout the century, their political power grew as they acquired more land and grew wealthy. The organization eventually became an alternative political structure and following conflicts between the organization and the Hunwil nobles, in 1382 the Landsgemeinde excluded the Hunwils from holding political or court offices. This defeat drove the Confederates out of Bellinzona and the Val d' Ossola and Leventina. An attempt to pull the Entlebuch region away from Lucerne ended with the Obwalden supported Entlebuch leader Peter Amstalden arrested, tried and executed in 1478. In 1500, Nidwalden, Schwyz, and Uri conquered Ticino again and ruled until 1798. While Obwalden participated in the conquests of Aargau (1415), Thurgau (1460), and Locarno, (1512), and in the temporary occupation of the Val d' Ossola (1410–14, 1416–22, 1425–26, 1512–15) A local hermit, Niklaus von der Flüe from Obwalden, was consulted on the situation.
Geography
thumb|left|Mt. Titlis Glacier
Highest elevation: Titlis (Urner Alps), 3238 m
Lakes in the canton include: parts of Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee), Lake Sarnen (Sarnersee), Lake Lungern (Lungerersee), Wichelsee, Tannensee and Melchsee.
The total area of the canton is . , or about 40.2% of the canton is wooded. , or about 37.9% is used in agriculture. Of the rest of the area, or 3.2% is developed (structures and roads) and or 18.7% is classed as unproductive (rivers, mountains or glaciers).
Politics
Within the Swiss Confederation Obwalden is a half canton. This gives Obwalden all the rights and duties of full cantons, with the exception that the canton can only send one deputy to the Council of States. The small size of the canton allows a small government with only five members.
Federal elections
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Christian Social Party of Obwalden which received 56.9% of the vote. The other party in the election was the SVP with 43.1%. The CSP OW jumped from having no candidate or votes in 2007 to a majority in 2011.
Federal election results
{| class="wikitable sortable" style ="text-align: center"
|-
! colspan="15"| 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
|-
! FDP.The Liberals
| bgcolor=""| || Classical liberalism || 32.5 || * || * || * || 30.4 || * || * || 0.0 || * || * || * || *
|-
! CVP/PDC/PPD/PCD
| bgcolor=""| || Christian democracy || 67.0 || 97.1 || 95.7 || 91.0 || 51.7 || 95.3 || 94.2 || 0.0 || 66.4 || 32.5 || * || *
|-
! SP/PS
| bgcolor=""| || Social democracy || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 0.0 || * || 11.6 || * || *
|-
! SVP/UDC
| bgcolor=""| || Swiss nationalism || * || * || * || * || * || * || * || 0.0 || 33.6 || 32.9 || 43.1 || 34.5
|-
! FPS/PSL
| bgcolor=""| || Right-wing populism || * || * || * || * || * || * || 3.8 || 0.0 || * || * || * || *
|-
! Other (incl. CSP OW)
| || || 0.5 || 2.9 || 4.3 || 9.0 || 17.8 || 4.7 || 2.1 || 0.0 || 0.0 || 23.0 || 56.9 || 65.5
|-
! Voter participation % || || || 53.7 || 21.2 || 42.3 || 30.9 || 50.9 || 26.7 || 31.9 || 0.0 || 45.7 || 59.7 || 64.3 || 59.5
|-
|}
: FDP before 2009, FDP.The Liberals after 2009
: "*" indicates that the party was not on the ballot in this canton.
: No election held
Cantonal elections
thumb|Election apportionment, parliament of the canton of Obwalden, Switzerland, 2010
In the Cantonal Council election, on 7 March 2010, the centre maintained its dominance of the Cantonal Council. The Christian Democrats lost three seats, but remained the largest party with 20. The Swiss People's Party gained five seats to become the second largest party, while the FDP.The Liberals retained 10 seats but dropped to the third largest. The Social Democratic Party remained steady with 6 seats and the Christian Social Party of Obwalden lost two seats to have 8.
The evolving party membership in the Kantonsrat is shown in the following chart (for selected dates): Most of the population () speaks German (29,920 or 92.3%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (452 or 1.4%) and Serbo-Croatian is the third (399 or 1.2%). There are 144 people who speak French, 329 people who speak Italian and 32 people who speak Romansh.
, there were 12,445 private households in the canton, and an average of 2.5 persons per household.
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{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"
! colspan="21" | Historic Population Data This cantonal tax is in addition to federal and local taxes.
, Obwalden had an unemployment rate of 1.5%. , there were 1,871 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 750 businesses involved in this sector. 6,499 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 452 businesses in this sector. 10,037 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 1,380 businesses in this sector.
Of the working population, 10.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 54.6% used a private car.
Notes and references
External links
- Official site
- Obwalden.net
- Official statistics