Forch

Forch is a village and a mountain pass (el. 682 m (2,238 ft)) located in the municipalities of Küsnacht and Maur in the canton of Zürich, Switzerland.

Geography

Forch is located approximately 10 km (6.2 mi) in the southeast of Zürich, nearby Zumikon and Maur. It includes the hamlets Aesch and Scheuren (villages of the municipality Maur), and Kaltenstein in the east of the pass, Wangen and Neue Forch, which are villages of the municipality of Küsnacht. The forested hill called Guldenen on Pfannenstiel belongs to the Forch area, Hinter Guldenen to the municipality of Maur and Vorder Guldenen is part of the municipality of Egg.

The mountain pass named Forch connects Küsnacht on Lake Zürich and Maur on Greifensee respectively in the Glatt Valley. A monument called Wehrmännerdenkmal commemorating World War I is located nearby Neue Forch and Wassberg hill (el. 851 metres (2,792 ft)), which is also a popular recreation area for the people of the city of Zürich.

Village of Forch

The population of the village of Forch is about 3,004 (as of 2013). The village has preserved its rural character. Since 1912, Forch is a stop of the Forchbahn, a tramway of the S-Bahn Zürich, between the Stadelhoferplatz in Zürich and the municipality of Esslingen. Forch village is connected by the A52 highway to Zumikon (to the west) and Hinwil (to the east) heading to the Zürcher Oberland. Thanks to these good conditions, Forch is the biggest village within the municipality of Maur. Nevertheless, its infrastructure, apart from Kindergarten, primary school, post office, retail facilities and hospitality is modest, i.e. most infrastructure facilities are located in Maur and Küsnacht.

Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft

The Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft or Lake Zürich Navigation Company (commonly abbreviated to ZSG) is a public Swiss company operating passenger ships and boats on Lake Zürich.

The company operates services connecting lake-side towns between Zürich and Rapperswil, as well as more tourist oriented cruises and boat services on the Limmat through the centre of the city of Zürich. It is a member of the Zürich Public Transport Network (ZVV) and transports over 1,5 million passengers every year.

The ZSG is a joint stock company with a share capital of 11 million Swiss Francs (CHF). The share capital – one third is in private hands – is divided into 110,000 bearer shares, each with a nominal value of CHF 100.

History

Steam navigation started on Lake Zürich in 1834, when Franz Carl Caspar and Johann Jakob Lämmlin founded a new company (Caspar und Lämmlin, Unternehmer der Dampfschiffahrt auf dem Zürcher- und Walensee) and ordered their first ship from William Fairbairn of Manchester, England. The Minerva entered service the following year. When the cuty fortifications were abolished, the then called Bauschänzli bastion remained intact, and served from 1835 to 1883 as the landing site for the first steamboats on the lake, later provided by the Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft.