Sarnen is a small historic town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Obwalden situated on the northern shores of Lake Sarnen () in Switzerland. It has a population of just over 10,000 and is surrounded by countryside and mountains. Sarnen is located 20 km south of Lucerne. The official language of Sarnen is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect. History Stone Age and Bronze Age finds show that the Sarnen valley was inhabited from the earliest times. Over the years Sarnen developed into an important trading center. Geography Sarnen is situated at an altitude of on the northern shore of Lake Sarnen () along the outflow of the Sarner Aa. Lake Sarnen covers approximately an area of . The town is surrounded by mountain chains and a protected bog can be found nearby. The most well-known mountain close to Sarnen is Mount Pilatus with an elevation of . Sarnen has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 39.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 50.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.0% is settled (buildings or roads) and 4.3% is unproductive land. In the 2004/09 survey a total of or about 3.6% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of over the 1980/81 amount. Of the agricultural land, is used for orchards and vineyards, is fields and grasslands and consists of alpine grazing areas. Since 1980/81 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by . Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by . Rivers and lakes cover in the municipality. The municipality is made up of 5 sections; Sarnen (population 5,984), Stalden (pop. 1,072), Wilen (pop. 1,234), Kägiswil (pop. 1,214) and Ramersberg (pop. 294). Demographics Sarnen has a population () of . , 14.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 4 years (2010-2014) the population has changed at a rate of 2.62%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2014, was 9.2, while the death rate was 6.6 per thousand residents. Most of the population () speaks German (91.0%), with Italian being second most common (1.6%) and Albanian being third (1.6%). the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make