Ascona (Ticinese: Scona [ˈʃkona])[3] is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.

The town is a popular tourist destination and holds the yearly Ascona Jazz Festival.

The oldest archaeological finds in Ascona (at S. Materno and S. Michele) go back to the beginnings of the Late Bronze Age.

The grave goods have similarities with those from the final phase of the so-called Canegrate culture (named after a large necropolis in Milan).

This allowed the cemetery to be dated to the period between the 12th and 10th centuries BC and points to the fact that Ascona took part in trade over the Alps through the Val Mesolcina and over Lake Maggiore with the Po Valley.

[4] Similar objects were found by exploratory excavations in the late 1960s on the castle hill of San Michele.

Both fine ceramics and coarse pottery were discovered, which suggests that this area was settled during the Late Bronze Age, even if there is no evidence of the municipal structures.

Remains of walls and clay from the Balladrum hill are the only Iron Age objects found in the municipality.

[6] The German form of the name, Aschgunen, is recorded from the 16th century, when Locarno had come under the rule of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

It is believed that in the 6th century, the Castle of San Michele was the site of a curia (court) and the seat of a sculdascio (Lombardic for officer) of the county of Stazzona, who exercised control over the entire parish of Locarno.

Other noble families from Locarno (Da Carcano, Castelletto, Muralto) settled in Ascona.

In 1428, Filippo Maria Visconti gave the villages the market right, which was renewed by the Confederates after the conquest of Locarno in 1513.

In 1580, Bartolomeo Papio, who had become wealthy in Rome, donated 25,000 Scudi to Ascona for the construction of a seminary as long as the work could be completed within three years.

After negotiations with Charles Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan, and representatives of Pope Gregory XIII, it was decided to sell the originally planned Casa Papio and to build the Collegio Papio college next to the Church of S. Maria della Misericordia.

In 1617-37 the Church of Madonna della Fontana was built on the northern slopes of Monte Verità, which became a pilgrimage destination.

Under the bishop of Lugano, several religious orders administered the seminary, including the Salesians (1894–1910), the Assumptionists (1910–14), and finally the Benedictines (since 1924).

A smaller, but important source of income was the emigration of builders, architects, and artists to Rome and Tuscany.

In the second half of the 19th century, a dynamite factory operated in Ascona, but it closed after repeated explosions in 1874.

Since 1970 the number of second homes has increased substantially, and at the end of the 20th century, during the summer season, around 20,000 to 25,000 visitors came to Ascona each year.

The expansion has proceeded more and more towards the north, so that as of 2023[update] Locarno and Ascona form a single agglomeration.

[8] In 1945 negotiations over World War II surrender plans took place between U.S. and Nazi German representatives in Ascona.

[9] "Monte Verità" ("Mount Truth") was so named at the beginning of the 20th century, when a "colony" was founded by proponents of primitive socialism and anarchy on a hill formerly known as "Monescia", just to the north-west of the town of Ascona.

[10] The colony attracted a large number of artists, anarchists, and other famous people, including Hermann Hesse, Hans Habe, Carl Jung, Erich Maria Remarque, Hugo Ball, Else Lasker-Schüler, Stefan George, Isadora Duncan, Paul Klee, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Wigman, Gyula Háy, Max Picard, Ernst Toller, Henri van de Velde, Rudolf Laban, Frieda and Else von Richthofen, Otto Gross, Erich Mühsam, Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, and Gustav Stresemann.

It consists of the town of Ascona which includes the sections of Gerbi, Monescie, Monte Verità, Moscia, and Saleggi.

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure two keys argent in saltire ribboned together and in chief a papal crown of the same.

[15] The historical population is given in the following table:[7] There are eleven Swiss heritage site of national significance in Ascona.

The Balladrum, a prehistoric and medieval settlement, as well as the Albergo, a park with a complex of houses, and the Monte Verità Museum, are also on the list.

The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields.

[23] In 2014 the crime rate, of the over 200 crimes listed in the Swiss Criminal Code (running from murder, robbery, and assault to accepting bribes and election fraud), in Ascona was 64.4 per thousand residents, slightly lower than the national average (64.6 per thousand).

The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 1.7 per thousand residents.