Gossau, Zürich

Gossau is a municipality of about 10,300 inhabitants in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich, Switzerland. Besides the village of Gossau itself, with the church settlement of Berg, it includes the settlements of Bertschikon, Grüt, Herschmettlen and Ottikon, and it stretches through the uppermost section of the Glatt valley. The topography is littered with ice age moraines known as drumlins and with the basin of the former Gossauer Ried moor. Gossau is first mentioned in 859 as Cozzesouwo. The municipality covers about 18.3 square kilometres, of which 67 percent is farmland, 14.2 percent forest and 17.9 percent built up. Its notable people include Jakob Falk, a martyr of the Swiss Anabaptist movement who died in Zürich on 5 September 1528, and the politician Ernst Brugger, who lived from 1914 to 1998.