History
Wang(en) means an area at the foot of a slope; in this case the slope in question is almost certainly that of the nearby Jura mountain range. Wangen's coat of arms shows crossed St Peter's keys in blue on a white ground. The nobles (or Vögte) who held the lordship of Wangen adopted this symbol which had been the badge of the Upper Aargau estates of the monastery of St Peter in Schwarzwald. The earliest document to be sealed with the crossed-keys symbol dates from the year 1380.
The castle, built by the Kyburger dynasty in 1407, became the seat of the Bernese regional governorship, and some departments of the regional administration are still housed in the building today. The settlement occupied a strategically important spot, guarding the river-crossing and serving as a customs and staging-point for waterway traffic on the Aare. When the latter trade came to an end the little town experienced a serious economic crisis. The salt house of 1775 remains today as a testament to this past.
Read more about this topic: Wangen An Der Aare
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