Stäfa

Stäfa is a municipality in the district of Meilen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. It lies on the north bank of Lake Zürich in the Pfannenstiel region, near Rapperswil, and covers about 8.6 square kilometres. Nearly half of that area is used for agriculture and almost a fifth is forested, and the villages of Kehlhof and Uerikon are politically part of the municipality. The name is said to come from the Scottish island of Staffa, given by a monk from Iona, and in the local dialect the place is also called Stäfa. Its early history is closely tied to Einsiedeln Abbey: in 972 King Otto II confirmed the abbey possessions on the lake, among them Steveia, which is Stäfa. The poet Goethe once stayed overnight in the town. At the end of 2020 Stäfa had a population of 14,791, most of whom speak German.