Prato-Sornico
Encyclopedia
Vallemaggia (district)
The district of Vallemaggia is a district of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It has a population of . The capital of the district is Cevio.-Geography:...
in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
The municipality contained the villages Prato
Prato, Vallemaggia
Prato is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.Prato was a municipality of its own until 1864, when it merged with its neighbor Sornico to form the new municipality Prato-Sornico....
and Sornico
Sornico
Sornico is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.Sornico was a municipality of its own until 1864, when it merged with its neighbor Prato to form the new municipality Prato-Sornico....
. These entities were former municipalities of their own, having been merged to form Prato-Sornico in 1864.
In 2004 Prato-Sornico municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio
Broglio, Switzerland
Broglio is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Brontallo, Fusio, Menzonio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico to form a new and larger municipality...
, Brontallo
Brontallo
Brontallo is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio, Fusio, Menzonio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico to form a new and larger municipality...
, Fusio
Fusio
Fusio is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio, Brontallo, Menzonio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico to form a new and larger municipality...
, Menzonio
Menzonio
Menzonio is a village and former municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland.In 2004 the municipality was merged with the other, neighboring municipalities Broglio, Brontallo, Fusio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico to form a new and larger municipality...
and Peccia
Peccia
Peccia is one of six small Swiss municipalities which merged in April 2004 to form the commune of Lavizzara, with about 1000 people. The other municipalities were Broglio, Brontallo, Fusio, Menzonio, and Prato-Sornico.-History:...
to form a new and larger municipality Lavizzara
Lavizzara
Lavizzara is a municipality in the district of Vallemaggia in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.The municipality was created in 2004 by a merger of Broglio, Brontallo, Fusio, Menzonio, Peccia and Prato-Sornico.-History:...
.
History
Prato and Sornico were first mentioned in 1374.Prato and Sornico, along with Broglio, Fusio and Peccia, formed the valley community of Lavizzara. In 1374, the community dissolved and the villages of Prato and Sornico became independent. The common, shared land
The commons
The commons is terminology referring to resources that are owned in common or shared between or among communities populations. These resources are said to be "held in common" and can include everything from natural resources and common land to software. The commons contains public property and...
of the four communities of Fusio, Peccia, Prato and Sornico (known as the comunella dei quattro comuni) remained shared until 1929. In the 15th Century, the hamlet was the seat of the General Council of the valley, then the seat of the Swiss Confederation
Old Swiss Confederacy
The Old Swiss Confederacy was the precursor of modern-day Switzerland....
governor between 1513 and 1798. After 1803 it was the capital of the sub-district of Lavizzara. Even today stately houses in the village testify of its political and religious importance of the village. One of the houses in the village, which was built in the 15th Century, extended in the 16th Century and renovated in 1975-77, served as the seat of the bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
and a prison. Another house, in Prato, is Casa Berna which is from the 18th Century. It contains the rich library of Giulio Giovanni Gerolamo Berna, the archpriest
Archpriest
An archpriest is a priest with supervisory duties over a number of parishes. The term is most often used in Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholic Churches, although it may be used in the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church instead of dean or vicar forane.In the 16th and 17th centuries, during...
of Locarno.
The church of San Martino in Sornico is first mentioned in the 14th Century, but probably dates back to the 11th Century. It was the mother church
Mother Church
In Christianity, the term mother church or Mother Church may have one of the following meanings:# The first mission church in an area, or a pioneer cathedral# A basilica or cathedral# The main chapel of a province of a religious order...
in the 16th Century of the Val Lavizzara and in 1747 was raised to a of the provost
Provost (religion)
A provost is a senior official in a number of Christian churches.-Historical Development:The word praepositus was originally applied to any ecclesiastical ruler or dignitary...
's church. The parish church
Parish church
A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
of SS Fabiano e Sebastiano in Prato was built in 1487, rebuilt in 1730 and re-consecrated in 1761 by the Bishop of Como
Roman Catholic Diocese of Como
The Catholic diocese of Como, in northern Italy, has existed since the fourth century. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Milan. The bishops' seat is in Como Cathedral....
.
In the 19th and 20th Century, the emigration overseas and into the cities led to a sharp population decline. In this alpine village at the beginning of the 21st Century, one-third of the workforce still works in agriculture. In the last decades of the 20th Century many vacation homes and tourist infrastructure were built in the village.
Geography
Prato-Sornico has an area, , of 38.34 square kilometres (14.8 sq mi). Of this area, 0.2 km² (0.077220431718507 sq mi) or 0.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 11.47 km² (4.4 sq mi) or 29.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.1 km² (24.7 acre) or 0.3% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.36 km² (0.138996777093313 sq mi) or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes and 20.71 km² (8 sq mi) or 54.0% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.1%. Out of the forested land, 18.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.4% is used for growing crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 23.2% is unproductive vegetation and 30.9% is too rocky for vegetation.
The village is located in the Vallemaggia district. It is located about 37 km (23 mi) from Locarno
Locarno
Locarno is the capital of the Locarno district, located on the northern tip of Lake Maggiore in the Swiss canton of Ticino, close to Ascona at the foot of the Alps. It has a population of about 15,000...
. It was created in 1864 when the hamlets
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
of Prato and Sornico merged. The village boundaries include the peak of Pizzo Campo Tencia which is 3071 m (10,075.5 ft) high.
Coat of arms
The blazonBlazon
In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image...
of the municipal coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
is Argent in chief a cloth gules hanging from a sword azure fesswise point to dexter and in base a pot sable. The pot is a traditional symbol of the Lavizzara valley.
Demographics
Prato-Sornico has a population of 104.Most of the population speaks Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
(96 or 92.3%), with German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
being second most common (4 or 3.8%) and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
being third (2 or 1.9%). There is 1 person who speaksFrench
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and people who speak Romansh.
Of the population in the village 63 or about 60.6% were born in Prato-Sornico and lived there in 2000. There were 24 or 23.1% who were born in the same canton, while 8 or 7.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9 or 8.7% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 43 people who were single and never married in the village. There were 52 married individuals, 7 widows or widowers and 2 individuals who are divorced.
There were 8 households that consist of only one person and 2 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 41 households that answered this question, 19.5% were households made up of just one person and 2 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 10 married couples without children, 15 married couples with children There were 1 single parents with a child or children. There were 4 households that were made up unrelated people and 1 household that was made some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 73 single family homes (or 93.6% of the total) out of a total of 78 inhabited buildings. There were 2 multi-family buildings (2.6%), along with multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (0.0%) and 3 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (3.8%). Of the single family homes 9 were built before 1919, while 0 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (38) were built between 1919 and 1945.
there were 80 apartments in the village. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 21. There were 3 single room apartments and 24 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 39 apartments (48.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 41 apartments (51.3%) were seasonally occupied.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Economy
There were 50 residents of the village who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 28.0% of the workforce. , there were 15 workers who commuted into the village and 24 workers who commuted away. The village is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.6 workers leaving the village for every one entering.Religion
From the , 95 or 91.3% were Roman Catholic, while 3 or 2.9% belonged to the Swiss Reformed ChurchSwiss Reformed Church
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...
. Of the rest of the population,, and there was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. There were 4 (or about 3.85% of the population) who belonged to no church, are agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
or atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, and 1 individuals (or about 0.96% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Prato-Sornico about 36 or (34.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 4 or (3.8%) have completed additional higher education (either University or a FachhochschuleFachhochschule
A Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...
). Of the 4 who completed tertiary schooling, all were Swiss men. , there were 1 students in Prato-Sornico who came from another village, while 6 residents attended schools outside the village.