amounts of hydropower available or through the increased traffic. Rather, entrepreneurial initiative seems to have been an important stimulus. The companies Sallmann, Laib, and Tuchschmid were a center of manufacturing, known as the Trikoterie. While Esco and Löw were important representatives of the clothing and footwear industry. The growth led to structural problems especially in water supply, which were resolved definitively in 1952 with the purchase of water from Lake Constance. With the migration, especially from Italy, the number of foreigners increased from 7% in 1870 to 29% in 1910. Several Bürgergemeinden and villages merged into Amriswil, including Hemmerswil in 1925 and Mühlebach in 1932. The construction and services sectors – trade companies, hotels and restaurants, banks, handicapped services (1909), Cantonal Kindergarten training school (1975) – created new jobs. The Trikoterie remained a keystone of the local economy until around 1980, when the various companies had to close down. At this time the economy was more balanced. In 1990 there were about 90 commercial agriculture farms and about 3,300 jobs in the manufacturing and services sectors, of which 47% were in the services sector. Geography Amriswil has an area, , of . Of this area, or 67.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 13.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 19.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 10.8% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 2.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.4%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.1% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 4.7%. Out of the forested land, 10.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 54.5% is used for growing crops, while 13.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in Arbon District, at the crossing of the Winterthur-Arbon and Constance-St. Gallen roads. It consists of the village of Amriswil and the hamlets of Biessenhofen, Oberaach, Schocherswil and Räuchlisberg. Demographics Amriswil has a population () of . , 26.4% of the population are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at