Umhausen
Encyclopedia
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
in the Imst district
Imst (district)
The Bezirk Imst is an administrative district in Tyrol, Austria. It borders the district Reutte in the north, as well as sharing a small border with Bavaria...
and is located 17 km southeast of Imst
Imst
Imst is a city in the Austrian federal state of Tyrol. It lies on the River Inn in western Tyrol, some 55 km west of Innsbruck and at an altitude of 828 m above sea-level...
at the Ötztaler Ache
Ötztaler Ache
The Ötztaler Ache is a right tributary of the Inn River in the Imst and flows through the Ötztal valley with a length of appr. 35 km. It merges with the Inn River 8 km east of Imst. The river is one of the biggest tributaries with plenty of water...
in the Ötztal
Ötztal
The Ötztal is a 65-kilometer long alpine valley in the Austrian state of Tyrol. The Ötztaler Ache river flows through the valley in a northern direction. The Ötztal separates the Stubai Alps in the east from the Ötztal Alps in the west. The northern end of the valley is at the confluence of the...
.
The municipality consists of six villages: Umhausen, Tumpen, Köfels, Farst, Niederthai, Östen.
Umhausen was once a centre for cultivation of flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
.
Today the main source of income is tourism. In the area of the community lies the highest waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
of Tyrol with 150 metres. It has 2913 inhabitants.
Landslide
The Köfels landslide was a gigantic landslide, known as a sturzstromSturzstrom
A sturzstrom is a rare, unique type of landslide consisting of soil and rock which is characterized by having a great horizontal movement when compared to its initial vertical drop - as much as 20 or 30 times the vertical distance...
, that occurred in the Ötz valley approximately 9800±100 years ago according to radiocarbon dating of trees buried by the event. It involved a 2.5 km horizontal displacement and 800 m vertical displacement of 3.2 km3 of rock and mud along the Ötz valley floor, making it the third largest known sturzstrom.