Seegräben is a municipality in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.

Geography

Seegräben has an area of . Of this area, 49.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 15.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 15.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (19.1%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). housing and buildings made up 10.4% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest (5.3%). Of the total unproductive area, water (streams and lakes) made up 10.4% of the area. 12.7% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction.

Seegräben is the smallest municipality in the district of Hinwil. It consists of three sections, the village of Seegräben, Aathal and Sack.

Demographics

Seegräben has a population ( ) of 1,210, of which 14.6% are foreign nationals. the gender distribution of the population was 51% male and 49% female. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 0.1%. Most of the population ( ) speaks German (89.8%), with Turkish being second most common ( 2.0%) and Spanish being third ( 1.6%).

In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 33.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (16.6%), the CSP (15.7%) and the Green Party (13.8%).

The age distribution of the population ( ) is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 28.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 8.4%. The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Seegräben about 81.1% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either University or a Fachhochschule). There are 491 households in Seegräben.

Seegräben has an unemployment rate of 2.01%. , there were 52 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 16 businesses involved in this sector. 24 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 9 businesses in this sector. 227 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 39 businesses in this sector. 49.1% of the working population were employed full-time, and 50.9% were employed part-time.

 there were 309 Catholics and 610 Protestants in Seegräben. In the  , religion was broken down into several smaller categories. From the 2000 census, 53.6% were some type of Protestant, with 49.8% belonging to the Swiss Reformed Church and 3.8% belonging to other Protestant churches. 24.9% of the population were Catholic. Of the rest of the population, 0% were Muslim, 6.2% belonged to another religion (not listed), 2% did not give a religion, and 13.2% were atheist or agnostic.

Dinosaur museum Aathal

The dinosaur museum in Aathal contains a collection of dinosaur skeletons which were unearthed by Hans-Jakob Siber and his team in the US state of Wyoming. Additionally they have a large reproduction of a Ankylosaurus skeleton that was found by Robert Gaston in Utah. The museum also includes exhibits on dinosaur eggs, foot prints, presence in movies and dinosaurs from Switzerland.

Transportation

Aathal-Seegräben is a stop of the Zürich S-Bahn on the lines S9 and S14. Its train station is a 26 minute (S14) ride from Zürich Hauptbahnhof.

References

1. Seegräben website-Portrait accessed 6 August 2009
2. Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 06-Aug-2009
3. Statistics Zurich accessed 4 August 2009
4. Dinosaur Museum accessed 6 August 2009

External links

• Official website
• Dinosaur Museum