first mentioned in 1585 and burned down in 1695. Presumably both chapels were in use until the late 17th century. After the Protestant Reformation of 1529 the court returned to the Catholic faith, while the village remained Reformed. After St. Gallen acquired the rights to appoint a priest and collect tithes in 1585 from the Convent of St. Pelagius in Bischofszell, the village church was supported by Sulgen's church. This changed in 1617 when Neukirch an der Thur began providing a priest, and then in 1676, the priest was appointed by the castle. In 1809 an independent Reformed parish of Bürglen-Andwil was formed. Geography Bürglen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 62.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 17.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 17.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.5% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 5.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 2.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 5.2%. Out of the forested land, 16.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 55.7% is used for growing crops, while 6.4% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Weinfelden district. It was created in 1995 from the former Ortsgemeinden of Bürglen, Leimbach and Opfershofen of the former Munizipalgemeinde of Bürglen as well as Istighofen, which used to be part of Bussnang. The Ortsgemeinden of Donzhausen, Hessenreuti and Uerenbohl, which used to belong to the Munizipalgemeinde of Bürglen, became part of Sulgen in 1995. Demographics Bürglen has a population () of . , 25.2% of the population are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of -8.7%. Most of the population () speaks German (84.1%), with Albanian being second most common ( 5.9%) and Turkish being third ( 3.1%). , the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. The population was made up of 1,160 Swiss men (36.5% of the population), and 426 (13.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,218 Swiss women (38.3%), and 374 (11.8%) non-Swiss women. In there