Heiden

Heiden lies on the northern slope of the Appenzell Prealps, on a terrace above Lake Constance. The municipality spans a wide range of height: from 400 metres at the lakeside to 790 metres on the heights, over a little more than seven square kilometres. It counted 4,383 inhabitants at the end of 2024. A rack railway links it to Rorschach on the shore and connects it to the Appenzell railway network.

The layout of the township is the product of a disaster. In 1839 fire destroyed almost the whole village; the rebuilding did not follow the old lines but a grid plan, straight streets and regular blocks — a rare figure in a region where villages string out along the ridges. That single, unified drawing can still be read on the ground.

The cure did the rest. From 1848 Heiden developed as a whey-cure resort, and the facilities followed: a wooden Kursaal, built in 1872-1873 in a Moorish style by the architect Horace Édouard Davinet, then in 1874 a district hospital, since become the cantonal hospital. It was in this township that Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, spent his last eighteen years and died; the house where he lived now holds a museum devoted to him.

Why this place is remarkable

Few Swiss villages carry the mark of a single day so visibly. The fire of 1839 erased Heiden, and the rebuilding gave it what it had never had: a regular plan, drawn in one go, on a terrace facing Lake Constance. The whey cure moved into that new setting less than ten years later, with its hotels and its wooden Kursaal. It was in this cure township, and not in a capital, that Henri Dunant ended his life.

History and origin

The area once belonged to the commune of Kurzenberg. In 1652 Heiden and Wolfhalden broke away from it, the road to the church at Thal being too long. The fire of 1839 carried off almost the entire built fabric and forced the rebuilding on a grid plan. The whey cure settled in from 1848, followed by the facilities that came with it: the Kursaal of 1872-1873 and the district hospital of 1874, since become the cantonal hospital. Henri Dunant died here after living his last eighteen years in the place.