Emmen, Switzerland

Emmen is a town and municipality of about 31,000 inhabitants in the district of Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. It consists of the village of Emmen, the town of Emmenbrücke and several hamlets. It is first mentioned in 840 as Emau in a document of King Lothair I, and for centuries the region was ruled by Murbach Abbey in the Vosges. In 1291 the municipality came under Habsburg rule, after the Battle of Sempach in 1386 the Habsburgs lost Emmen and it became part of the canton of Lucerne, and it also took part in the Swiss peasant war of 1653. Since 1803 it has belonged to the Hochdorf district, of which it is the most populous municipality. In 2008 Emmen, Adligenswil, Ebikon, Horw and Kriens took part in the project Starke Stadtregion Luzern, which examined a merger with the city of Lucerne; the voters of Emmen rejected the proposal in 2012, as did those of Adligenswil, Ebikon and Kriens, so Emmen remained independent.