and those who love children", it become known throughout the world. Modern-day Ragaz is also proud of the fact that it was the retreat where the Bohemian-Austrian poet and author Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) towards the end of his life reputedly wrote part of his poetic work the Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies), in particular the seventh Elegy with its famous lines Hiersein ist herrlich... (To be here is splendid ...). Geography Bad Ragaz has an area, , of . Of this area, 45.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 34.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (10.1%) is non-productive (rivers or lakes). The municipality is in the Sarganserland Wahlkreis of Bezirk Sargans. The spa and recreation village is in the south-east of the canton at the end of the Tamina valley. It lies on the north–south and east–west routes over the Graubünden Alps. Until 1937 Bad Ragaz was known as Ragaz. Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure a Dove volant displayed Argent beaked and membered Or having a sprig Gules in the beak. Demographics Bad Ragaz has a population (as of ) of . , about 25.1% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Of the foreign population, (), 122 are from Germany, 144 are from Italy, 508 are from ex-Yugoslavia, 59 are from Austria, 1 person is from Turkey, and 312 are from another country. Over the last 10 years the population has grown by 8.3%. Most of the population () speaks German (84.9%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common (4.3%) and Italian being third (2.9%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 4,184 speak German, 30 people speak French, 141 people speak Italian, and 45 people speak Romansh. The age distribution, , in Bad Ragaz is: there were 765 persons (or 15.5% of the population) who were living alone in a private dwelling. There were 1,181 (or 24.0%) persons who were part of a couple (married or otherwise committed) without children, and 2,390 (or 48.5%) who were part of a couple with children. There were 290 (or 5.9%) people who lived in single parent home, while there are 36 persons who were adult children living with one or both parents, 24 persons who lived in a household made up of relatives, 35 who lived household made up of unrelated