Zirl is a market town with 8110 inhabitants (as of January 1,
2020) in the Innsbruck-Land district in Tyrol (Austria). The
community is located in the judicial district of Telfs.
Location
Zirl is located at the southwestern end of the Karwendel
Mountains about 10 km west of Innsbruck in the Inn Valley at the
southeastern foot of the Zirler Berg (1057 m). It lies on the north
bank of the Inn on the alluvial cone of Ehnbach and Schloßbach.
Community structure
In addition to the main town of Zirl, the
municipal area also includes the Hochzirl, which is about 300 m
higher, the Martinswand, the Ehnbachklamm and part of the northern
chain with the 2,637 m high Kleiner Solstein. The Zirl Bahnhof
district is the only one south of the Inn. Eigenhofen and
Dirschenbach are two hamlets west of the town center on the old main
road.
Settlement on the Martinsbühel has been
proven since the La Tène period. In the 4th / 5th In the 16th
century, the Roman military station Teriolis existed here, which was
expanded into a hunting lodge around 1500 under the Roman-German
king and later Emperor Maximilian I. The Kaiser-Max-Grotte /
Martinswandgrotte is a reminder that Maximilian I is said to have
climbed up here at the end of the 15th century while hunting
chamois.
Zirl was an important traffic junction on the Roman
road Via Raetia to Augsburg. Here the steep ascent to the Seefelder
Saddle began, the course of which can no longer be clearly explained
today. The place was first mentioned on October 28, 799 as "Cyreolu"
or "Cyreola" on the occasion of a transfer of ownership to the
Schlehdorf Monastery.
The current ruin of the castle
inquiries stone was founded before 1209 and blown up in 1703 during
the War of the Spanish Succession (Bayrischer Rummel), whereupon it
has fallen into ruin since then. The area around the ruin is now a
nature reserve.
Since the 17th century, the community, along
with Thaur, was one of the centers for the construction of Christmas
cribs. Zirl had repeatedly been hit by floods and fires, most
recently on June 21, 1908 in a major fire that destroyed most of the
houses.
In 1826, the important Tyrolean church painter Franz
Plattner was born in Zirl. He died in Innsbruck in 1887.
From
1910 to 1912 the Mittenwaldbahn was built with complex structures,
of which the Martinswandtunnel, the Schloßbachviadukt, the
Ehnbachklammviadukt and the Hochzirl station are located in Zirl.
A large population growth in the last decades made Zirl a
residential community.
Since June 1, 1984, Zirl has had the
title of market town.