Lörrach

Lörrach is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss borders. It is the district seat of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. It is the home of a number of large employers, including the Milka chocolate factory owned by Mondelez International. The city population has grown over the last century; with only 10,794 in 1905, it has now increased its population to over 50,000.
Nearby is the castle of Rötteln on the Wiesental, whose lords became the counts of Hachberg and a residence of the Margraves of Baden; this was destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV in 1678, but was rebuilt in 1867. Lörrach received market rights in 1403, but it did not obtain the privileges of a city until 1682.
After the Napoleonic epoch, the town was included in the Grand Duchy of Baden. On 21 September 1848, Gustav Struve attempted to start a revolutionary uprising in Lörrach as part of the Revolutions of 1848–49. It failed, and Struve was caught and imprisoned. Still, Lörrach was officially the capital of Germany for a day.

Geography

Lörrach is located in the southernmost part of the Rhine Rift valley. The depression is created by tectonic movements, and the area has a high earthquake risk. Several times a year, Lörrach is afflicted by slight and medial earthquakes.
The city is located in a valley of the Quaternary period. Lörrach is surrounded by slopes on two sides. The slopes create the southern part of the Wiesental, that is the valley where the Wiese river flows.
Geographical locations of the subdistrict Lörrach:

Elevation of the lowest place: 272 m
Elevation of the highest place: 570 m

The extent of the urban area from south to north is 6.0 km and from east to west 4.6 km. Lörrach is also the capital city of Markgräflerland and a part of the tri-national agglomeration area of Basel. Stuttgart is 220 km away from Lörrach, and it takes one hour to drive to Bern or Zürich. The city has several forested hills along the valley Wiesental: Schädelberg, Homburg, Röttler Wald, and Tüllinger Berg.
Lörrach is bounded by many municipalities and the city of Riehen. In addition, it is located in the foothills of the Black Forest and on the border of Switzerland.

Climate

Lörrach's climate is mild, and in the summer, it is often hot. The region of Markgräflerland is the warmest in Germany because of the Mediterranean air current from the valley of the Rhône. Because of its numerous sunny days, the region is dubbed the German Tuscany.

Boroughs and districts

Lörrach is subdivided into three boroughs and three districts. In sum, the three boroughs have an area of 18.6 km².

Year of incorporation	Boroughs and districts	Area
1935	Borough Tumringen	4.4
1935	Borough Tüllingen	2.1
1908	Borough Stetten	4.6
1974	District Haagen	3.6
1975	District	9.8
1975	District Hauingen	7.4

The three districts have their own administrations with a chief magistrate. Every five years, the citizens of Lörrach elect the council of the districts. The satellite city Salzert was developed in 1963. Inzlingen, close to Lörrach, is an independent municipality, but Lörrach oversees its administration.

History

Year	Event
1102	Lörrach was first mentioned as the settlement Lorracho.
1403	Rupert of Germany declared Lörrach a market town.
1678	The castle of Rötteln was destroyed by the French.
1682	Lörrach was granted town privileges by Frederick VII, Margrave of Baden-Durlach.
1702	Battle of Käferholz against the French.
1756	The town received a new civic law and its first town hall.
1783	Johann Peter Hebel became a teacher at the boarding school.
1803	Stetten became a part of Baden, having previously belonged to Austria.
1808	In Lörrach, numerous buildings in the classical style were built.
1835	The state Baden joins the Zollverein.
1848	In September, Gustav Struve declared the new 'German Republic' from the town hall of Lörrach after the failed revolution. Some days later, he was arrested.
1862	The Wiesentalbahn between Basel, Lörrach, and Schopfheim was opened. A railway connection to Weil and Säckingen was extended to Lörrach in 1890. Also, Carl Christian Renaux was born on 11 March.
1863	Lörrach became a district seat.
1871	The first elementary school was opened.
1880	Philippe Suchard created a chocolate factory in Lörrach.
1908	Incorporation of Stetten; later, Tüllingen und Tumringen, Haagen, Brombach und Hauingen, were incorporated.
1945	Air raid on Brombach and Lörrach: On 24 April, French troops occupied the city.
1963	Start of construction of the district of Salzert.
1983	The fourth Landesgartenschau of Baden-Württemberg was held in the new park area in the Grütt.
1984	The finished motorway section between High Rhine and Upper Rhine relieved the heavy traffic of the city.
1991	Inauguration of the new pedestrian precinct and the transformation of the city centre.
2010	Two were killed and one injured in a shooting incident at the Saint Elizabeth Hospital.

Population development

Year	Population	Year	Population
1870	9,103	1975	44,179
1890	11,475	1981	40,064
1914	16,293	1990	42,500
1938	20,041	1992	43,976
1950	22,698	1996	44,756
1960	30,546	2000	45,679
1965	31,324	2001	46,272
1973	33,885	2002	46,741
1974	36,231	2004	46,754

source: Statistisches Landesamt Stuttgart, Statistischer Jahresbericht der Stadt Lörrach.

Coat of arms

Lörrach received its city rights in 1682 when it became the capital of the Oberamt Rötteln-Sausenberg. At the same time, its arms were granted. The arms show a canting lark. In 1756, both the city rights and the arms were regranted by Margrave Charles Frederick of Baden. The colours are also the colours of Baden. Even though the arms have not changed since, the shape and size of the lark have changed considerably. The present arms have been used since the early 1960s and show a very modern variation of the lark. After municipal reforms, the coat of arms was reconfirmed on 11 November 1975.

Religion

Christianity
Lörrach initially belonged to the diocese of Konstanz and was under the archdiocese of Breisgau. In 1529, after the Reformation had been introduced there, the parsonage of Lörrach was occupied from Basel. The reformation in the city was introduced in 1556. After that, Lörrach was for many centuries a predominantly Protestant city. In Rötteln, an archdiocese had existed since the beginning of the 15th century, which at the end of the 17th century, shifted to Lörrach. The Protestant pastor of Lörrach was from 1682 an intendant, too. The Stadtkirche is the main church of Lörrach. In addition, Lörrach has a few parishes: Johannespfarrei, Pauluspfarrei for the northern city, Matthäuspfarrei for the eastern city, Inzlingen, Markuspfarrei, Salzertgemeinde, and Friedensgemeinde for the district of Homburg.
The borough of Stetten was controlled by Austria until 1803. Therefore, Stetten has a Catholic tradition, although the Reformation had been introduced years before. Because of a contract with Austria, Stetten again became Catholic. At first, the parish of Stetten also served the resident Catholics of Lörrach. They held their church services in the new church, the Fridolinskirche. The original church of Stettens was founded in the 13th century. Between 1864 and 1867 in Lörrach, its own parish church was built, at which a curacy was created that was raised to the status of a parsonage in 1882. A second Catholic church was built in 1964. In Brombach, they had already built in 1900 a church, which has been a parsonage since 1911. All Catholic parishes of Lörrach today form together with the neighbouring parishes of St. Peter and Paul in Inzlingen a group pastoral ministry within the deanery of Wiesental belonging to the archbishopric Freiburg.
Today, the Lutheran denomination has a slight predominance in the city. In the borough of Stetten exists a relative Catholic majority.
Beside the two large churches, some parishes belong to free churches; for example, the Freie evangelische Gemeinde or FeG Lörrach.

Politics

Political proportion

The municipal council of Lörrach consists of 32 volunteer aldermen and alderwomen, whose chairman is the Oberbürgermeisterin. The municipal council is elected for a period of five years by the citizenry.
The last election from 13 June 2004 had a percentage of voting of 41.2% and resulted in the following allocation of seats in the city hall of Lörrach:

Party	Proportion	*	Seats	*
CDU	33.3%	-5.0%	11	-7
SPD	21.0%	-2.5%	7	-4
Freie Wähler	15.8%	+1.7%	5	-3
GRÜNE	15.7%	+4.0%	5	±0
FDP	8.0%	+5.1%	2	+1
KUL	6.1%	-0.5%	2	-1
total	100%		32	-14

Source:
Kommunale Unabhängige Liste

variance to the municipal council elections of 1999.