[4] On 10 February 878, the Emperor Charles the Fat gave his wife Richgard or Richardis the monasteries of Säckingen, of St. Felix and of Regula in Zürich as a royal estate.

Huldrych Zwingli a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland served in his first, Roman Catholic, ecclesiastical post in Glarus, starting around 1506.

The Swiss Confederation was embroiled in various campaigns with its neighbours: the French, the Habsburgs, and the Papal States.

In return, Pope Julius II honoured Zwingli by providing him with an annual pension.

However, the decisive defeat of the Swiss in the Battle of Marignano caused a shift in mood in Glarus in favour of the French rather than the pope.

Zwingli, the papal partisan, found himself in a difficult position and he decided to retreat to Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz.

This led to both religious groups using the town church simultaneously, an arrangement that caused numerous problems.

[9] The town created the Emigration Society and sent Judge Niklaus Dürst and blacksmith Fridolin Streif to search for land to settle in North America in 1845.

[10] On the 10/11 May 1861, the town was devastated by a fire that was fanned by a violent Föhn or south wind, rushing down from the high mountains through the natural funnel formed by the Linth valley.

The total loss is estimated at half a million sterling, of which about £100,000 were made up by subscriptions that poured in from every side.

After this incident, Glarus was rebuilt in block fashion according to construction plans by Bernhard Simon and Johann Caspar Wolff.

[citation needed] The town is located in the Glarner Mittelland on a broad valley floor between the Glärnisch and the Linth.

Of this area, 23% was used for agricultural purposes, while 31.4% was forested; of the rest of the land, 2.7% was settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (42.9%) was non-productive (2006 figures).

[12] With the incorporation of Ennenda, Netstal and Riedern in 2011, the municipality Glarus now has an area of 103.67 km2 (40.03 sq mi).

The wettest month was July during which time Glarus received an average of 193 mm (7.6 in) of precipitation.

The driest month of the year was February with an average of 80 mm (3.1 in) of precipitation over 9.5 days.