Minusio is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.

In the Ceresole section, a significant Iron Age necropolis (c. 6th-5th century BC) was discovered.

The Roman graveyards are among the most important in Ticino because of the complexity of the system and the amount of material.

[3] During the Middle Ages, it was a village, which, together with Brione sopra Minusio and Mergoscia formed a Vicinanza.

By the time that the village laws were written down in 1313, Minusio had separated from Mergoscia.

Traces of the old vicinanza remained until 1952 in the so-called Comunella dei tre comuni which held common property and court rights.

Minusio owned fishing and grazing rights in the Magadino valley, and shared ownership of the Terricciole region with Mergoscia and Locarno until 1920.

The parish church of San Rocco was first built at the end of the 15th century, but was completely rebuilt in 1795–1801.

The oldest religious building in the municipality is the Church of San Quirico in Rivapiana which was first mentioned in 1313.

The chapel of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori (1630) is attached to the Casa di Ferro, a military base, which had built by Peter Ammann a Pro in 1558.

[3] It was here that Giovanni Antonio Marcacci (1769–1854) built La Baronata as a summer house.

The building was bought by Mikhail Bakunin in 1873 with money he obtained from Carlo Cafiero.

They planned that possession of the building would give Bakunin the status of a land-owner, helping him gain Swiss citizenship, and to provide premises for storing arms and providing accommodation in aid of the anarchist international.

A second building was erected, a lake dug and a number of fruit trees planted.

When Bakunin's wife, Antonia Kwiatkowska, was on her way there in July 1874, her lover, Carlo Gambuzzi informed her that the house had been bought through the abuse of Cafiero's generosity.

However, on reflection, Cafiero told Bakunin on 15 July that he had indeed abused their friendship and that he would not spend any more money, thought or energy on La Baronata, rather devoting the fraction left of his inheritance on buying weapons for the proposed revolution in Italy.

On 25 July Bakunin signed over the deeds of the building to Cafiero and resolved to die on the barricades in Bologna.

Following a career as a revolutionary anarchist, Cafiero suffered a mental breakdown whilst in prison in Italy in 1882.

Over the same time period the amount of forested land has increased by 21 ha (52 acres).

It consists of the village of Minusio with the sections of Ceresole, Mappo and Mondacce.

[9] The historical population is given in the following table:[3] The Ca' Di Ferro and Oratorio Della Vergine Dei Sette Dolori A Rivaplana is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

[18] In the 2007[update] Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 4,574 registered voters in Minusio, of which 2,627 or 57.4% voted.

[22] In 2015 the average cantonal, municipal and church tax rate in the municipality for a couple with two children making SFr 80,000 was 2.2% and the rate for a single person making SFr 150,000 was 14.8%.

[9] From the 2000 census[update], 4,343 or 67.6% were Roman Catholic, while 817 or 12.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.

In the lower secondary school system, students either attend a two-year middle school followed by a two-year pre-apprenticeship or they attend a four-year program to prepare for higher education.

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

[24] 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 Minusio was 30.1 per thousand residents.