a town of Switzerland, in the canton of the same name, seated on the river Chuz, E. Long. 9. r. N. Lat. 47. 31. The canton itself, which was allied to the others in 1513, consists only of three or four valleys; having the town and abbey of St Gall on the north; the county of Toggenburg on the west; the lordship of Sax in the canton of Zurich, and that of Gambs in the canton of Schweiz, on the south; and the Rheinthal, or Rhine-valley, on the east. Its greatest length is about 30 miles, and its breadth about 20. It yields good pasturage, and consequently is not deficient in cattle, milk, butter, or cheese. Considerable quantities also of wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, peas, flax, and wine, are produced in it; besides a great deal of fruit, wood, and turf; with mineral waters, and warm baths. There are many mountains in the canton, the highest of which is that called the Hohejantii, or the Hohe-Mejer, which commands a prospect of a prodigious extent. There are also several lakes and rivers. The inhabitants, who are partly Protestant, testants, and partly Roman Catholics, subsist chiefly by their manufactures of linen, crape, sultan, and thread, or by bleaching, and the sale of their cattle, butter, cheese, horses, wood, and coal. Of the twenty-three parishes in the canton, four are Popish and nineteen Protestant. Before the reformation, the inhabitants were subject to the Abbot of St Gaul; but they then shook off his yoke, and united themselves with the other cantons: after that, however, there were violent animosities between the Papists and Protestants, the former continually persecuting the latter, till at last, in 1587, by the mediation of the other cantons, the two parties came to an accommodation, by which certain districts were assigned to each party, whereas before they lived promiscuously together; and though these two divisions now constitute but one canton, yet each forms a distinct community or free state, sending its particular representatives to the diets of the confederacy, and having its separate councils and officers.

In spirituals the Papists are subject to the bishop of Constance, but the Protestants to their own consistory. The militia of the former does not exceed 3000, whereas those of the latter amount to 10,000.