Wald, Zürich

Wald is a village and municipality of about 10,200 inhabitants in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich, Switzerland. It is mentioned for the first time in a document of 1217, and in 1621 the municipality received market rights. Around 1820 the village, referred to as Dorfschaft or Marktflecken, consisted of about 60 to 70 houses. Industrialisation in the 19th century made Wald an important business location with numerous spinning and weaving mills, and at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries there were 16 textile factories, so that it was also known as the Manchester of the canton of Zürich. In the 1860s the Oberholzer family of factory owners promoted social welfare by establishing workers' housing and day nurseries. In 1851 Wald was the first rural municipality in the canton to introduce weapons training for secondary school pupils, a tradition that survives in the boys' parades with muzzle-loading shooting at carnival time.