Horgen is a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. It is one of the larger towns along the south bank of the Lake of Zurich. On 1 January 2018 the former municipality of Hirzel merged into the municipality of Horgen. History Horgen is also the type-site of Switzerland's middle Neolithic archaeological culture. The settlement there, the so-called Horgner Kultur (Horgen culture), produced examples of a type of crude pottery with parallels to the Seine-Oise-Marne culture of northern France. Horgen is first mentioned in 952 as Horga. Geography Horgen has an area of . Of this area, 27.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 49.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 20.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (2%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). housing and buildings made up 12.5% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest (7.9%). Of the total unproductive area, water (streams and lakes) made up 1.6% of the area. , 16% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction. The large municipality stretches from the shores of Lake Zurich (elevation ), near Wädenswil over the Zimmerberg-Plateau where the decentralized village of Horgenberg is found (elevation ), though the Sihl Valley (Sihltal), to the peak of the Albis chain (elevation ). It includes the villages of Horgen, Arn and Horgenberg. Until 1773, Horgen included the now separate municipalities of Oberrieden and Hirzel. The Sihl forest (Sihlwald) became part of the city of Zürich in 1803. However the Horgen city council refused to acknowledge this until 1877. Demographics Horgen has a population (as of ) of . , 27.1% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. the gender distribution of the population was 49% male and 51% female. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 10.7%. Most of the population () speaks German (79.9%), with Italian being second most common ( 5.7%) and Albanian being third ( 2.8%). In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 35.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (18.9%), the FDP (15.8%) and the CSP (9.7%). The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.7% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 64.1% and seniors