Frick is a municipality in the district of Laufenburg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.
At the nearby Wittnauer Horn, a prehistorical fortification was discovered with objects dating back to the Late Bronze Age.
A Roman villa was located at the site of the later village in the 2nd century, and a small Roman fort was built in the early 4th century to protect the military road from Vindonissa to Augusta Raurica (extended in AD 370).
The name of the village was taken from that of the encompassing region of Frickgau (mentioned as Frichgowe in 926), from a Vulgar Latin [regio] ferraricia, in reference to the iron mine located here in the Roman era (a formation based on Latin ferrāria "iron mine" with the -icius suffix), whence early Romance *Ferrícia, Old High German *Ferríkkea, recorded as Fricho in the 11th century.
[3] Starting in the High Middle Ages, Frickgau was owned by the Counts of Homberg-Thierstein.
The tenants formed the lowest stratum, with no citizen rights, and represented the largest group numerically in the early modern period.
After the Act of Mediation in 1803, Frick and the rest of the modern Fricktal became part of the newly formed Canton of Aargau.
Before 1931, Frick had used the coat of arms of Fricktal, a green linden leaf in a white field.
In 2013 and 2014 it became the Swiss municipality with the highest crime rate, due to the several thousand offences registered in the context of the improper trading case involving ASE Investment, a company with official seat in Frick.
Of the rest of the land, 2.41 square kilometers (0.93 sq mi) or 24.2% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.06 km2 (15 acres) or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes.
27.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees.
During the upper Triassic period, about 210 million years ago, the region around Frick was a dry lowland with flat hills and small depressions.
During the rainy season, the depressions filled with water and dinosaurs congregated around the ponds.
[10] In 2006, the only coelophysoidean (a small-sized flesh-eating dinosaur group) fossil in Switzerland, was found by an amateur paleontologist in Frick,[11][12] in 2019 named Notatesseraeraptor.
[9] As of 2000[update] about 41.9% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage or a rent-to-own agreement).
[15] The historical population is given in the following chart:[21][4] The Catholic church of St. Peter and Paul as well as the charnel house are listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
[22] The village of Frick is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
[15] From the 2000 census[update], 2,061 or 51.2% were Roman Catholic, while 931 or 23.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.
[19] 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 Frick was 560 per thousand residents.
Over 1,500 people were affected, leading to thousands of charges filed in Frick.