Sursee

Sister cities

• Highland
• Martigny

History

The shores of Lake Sempach have been inhabited since the Neolithic. Sursee municipality is home to the Halbinsel prehistoric pile-dwelling (or stilt house) settlement that is part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage Site. Halbinsel was settled a number of times during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. At Zellmoos in the Halbinsel site, the bottom layer is from the Cortaillod culture while there are several Late Bronze Age layers above it. There are three Late Bronze Age layers at Gammainseli. The Zellmoos sites were discovered in 1806 and excavated in 1902, 1941, 1991 and 2005. The Bronze Age sites featured several houses with clay floors. A number of ceramic, bronze, bone, stone and flint items were found in the excavation. The Gammainseli site has been known since the 19th century, and was explored by divers in 2005, who found Late Bronze Age potsherds, animal bones and a few bronze items. Some neolithic flints were also found, but no trace of a settlement has been discovered. In the Roman era, there was a vicus just to the west of the town. In the 8th century, a wooden church was built around which the village gradually developed. The wooden church was replaced by stonework in c. 800, again rebuilt in c. 1000. An Alamannic cemetery and the remains of another early medieval church were excavated to the north-east of the town. The first mention as Surse dates to 1036, as Ulrich I of Lenzburg gave the village to Beromünster abbey. The village grew into a small town in the 13th century, granted city rights by the Dukes of Austria in 1299. Sursee was conquered by Lucerne in 1415, and managed to retain its city rights under the new lordship. In the later 19th century, the furnace-factory Ofenfabrik Sursee grew to be the largest…

Geography

Sursee has an area of . Of this area, 30.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 21.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 46.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.7%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). , 21.88% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 28.72% is used for farming or pastures, while 2.05% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 17.95% is covered with buildings, 9.23% is industrial, 0.51% is classed as special developments, 3.76% is parks or greenbelts and 15.21% is transportation infrastructure.

Most-observed species

• Meadow Brown

  Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758) · Insecta
  5,123
• European roe deer

  Capreolus capreolus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  3,682
• Common Blue

  Polyommatus icarus (von Rottemburg, 1775) · Insecta
  3,378
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,693
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  2,492
• red fox

  Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  2,475
• White-legged Damselfly, Blue featherleg

  Platycnemis pennipes (Pallas, 1771) · Insecta
  2,360
• Annual Fleabane

  Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers. · Magnoliopsida
  2,338

Most recent

• M 3.7 — 2026-04-26
  4 km N of Quarten, Switzerland
• M 4.1 — 2025-07-21
  4 km E of Frutigen, Switzerland
• M 3.5 — 2024-06-27
  1 km SSW of Todtmoos, Germany
• M 4.2 — 2024-06-04
  2 km NNW of Unteriberg, Switzerland
• M 3.9 — 2022-09-10
  1 km WSW of Zimmersheim, France
• M 4.1 — 2021-12-24
  2 km WSW of Blamont, France