Reute is a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland. History Reute was created due to the division of Appenzell in the wake of the Reformation. Some communities were left in the old faith, others turned themselves to the new faith. When the canton of Appenzell was divided in 1597 into a Catholic and a Protestant part of the canton, the Catholic majority of Hirschberg wanted to stay with Innerrhoden, while the Protestant minority wanted to go to Ausserrhoden. In the division of Appenzell (known as the Landteilungsbrief, literally Land division letter or treaty), the land owned by the Protestants was separated from Hirschberg and given to the Protestant Ausserrhoden, where it became the municipality of Reute. Catholic Hirschberg became part of the Innerrhoden municipality of Oberegg. Geography Reute has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 40.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 53.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.3% is settled (buildings or roads). In the 2004/09 survey a total of or about 3.2% of the total area was covered with buildings, an increase of over the 1983/84 amount. Of the agricultural land, is used for orchards and vineyards and is fields and grasslands. Since 1983/84 the amount of agricultural land has decreased by . Rivers and lakes cover in the municipality. Reute is divided into three districts which are individual hamlets: Mohren (110 people), Reute (190 people) and Schachen (390 people). The church is more than 300 years old. Demographics Reute has a population () of . , 15.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 4 years (2010-2014) the population has changed at a rate of 2.12%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2014, was 6.0, while the death rate was 4.5 per thousand residents. Most of the population () speaks German (97.3%), with Albanian being second most common (1.0%) and French being third (0.4%). , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 16.8% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 61.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 21.7%. In 2015 there were 270 single residents, 327 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 39 widows or widowers and 56 divorced residents. In 2014 there were 301 private households in Reute (AR) with an average household size of 2.23 persons. Of the 284 inhabited