Stans

Stans is the capital of the canton of Nidwalden in Switzerland and one of the oldest settlements in the Nidwalden valley, with the first traces of human settlement dating to the second century BC. The Alamanni settled the region in the seventh or eighth century and built the first church around 750 AD, which was replaced in 1647 by the present church of St. Peter and Paul. Stans was first mentioned in 1124, and by 1291, when Unterwalden joined Uri and Schwyz in what became the Swiss Confederation, it was already the capital of Unterwalden nid dem Kernwald, which became the half canton of Nidwalden. The municipality covers 11.08 square kilometres, with its village square at 452 metres, and had 8,171 inhabitants at the end of 2020.