Thalwil

Thalwil is a municipality and town in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland. The municipality has two parts, Thalwil on the eastern slopes of the Zimmerberg ridge beside Lake Zurich and the village of Gattikon on the western slopes by the Sihl river. It borders Rüschlikon, Langnau am Albis, Oberrieden and Horgen and, across the lake, Erlenbach. Thalwil is first mentioned around 1030 as Talwile villam and began as an Alemannic farmstead; its earliest recorded church was dedicated to St Martin in 1159. Its wood corporation, the Bannegg-Waldung, is the oldest in the canton of Zurich, first mentioned in 1483. After the lakeside road opened in the late 1830s, silk, cotton and other textile factories were established there. The municipality covers 5.5 square kilometres.