St. Gallen

(Sankt Gallen), a city in northeastern Switzerland, near the southern shore of Lake Constance. Capital of Sankt Gallen Canton. Population, 81,700 (1973). The city has textile, garment, chemical, food, printing, and metalworking industries. It also has a higher school of economics and industrial, historical, and ethnographic museums.

St. Gallen grew up around an abbey, established during the seventh and eighth centuries; the abbey’s foundations, laid circa 820, have been preserved. From the ninth through the eleventh century, St. Gallen was a cultural and artistic center. It has the Romanesque St. Magnus Church (eleventh century) and a baroque abbey church (1755–67) with a library (1758–67), both by architect P. Thum and others.