Schwand im Innkreis

Schwand im Innkreis lies in the flat farmland of Upper Austria’s Innviertel, forty-two metres above sea level. The village covers seventeen square kilometres, most of it open fields and meadows. Only six per cent of the land is wooded, the rest is used for crops and pasture. The nearest town, Braunau am Inn, is twelve kilometres away to the west. The population stands at just over a thousand people. The place first appears when the old Duchy of Bavaria claimed the land in the Middle Ages. It stayed Bavarian until 1779, when the Peace of Teschen handed the Innviertel to Austria. After a brief return to Bavaria under Napoleon, it became part of Upper Austria in 1814. The Anschluss in 1938 placed it in Gau Oberdonau, but in 1945 the borders were set back to where they had been before the war. The village is known for its Catholic parish church dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. Most of the seventy farms work the land full-time or part-time, while a few small firms provide local jobs. A single primary school serves the children. The Raiffeisenbank and a bus company run regular services to Braunau. The green, white and black colours of the coat of arms recall the forest clearings that gave the village its name.