Saas-Grund is a municipality in the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.
[3] On 3 April 1849, an avalanche destroyed a house that served as a refuge in avalanche-prone weather, and killed 19 people.
After that winter, each building that abutted the hill was extended with a vault, a Lawinengruft.
In 1943, the Swiss Alpine Club's magazine Die Alpen reported that they were last used in the winter of 1887/1888, and only two of them were remaining.
[4] Saas-Grund has an area, as of 2011[update], of 24.6 square kilometers (9.5 sq mi).
[5] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (1,068 or 91.5%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (35 or 3.0%) and Albanian is the third (35 or 3.0%).
[5] The historical population is given in the following chart:[3][11] It is the starting point for a small independent ski area which is also part of the combined Saastal ski region, albeit connected to the other parts of the region by postal bus, rather than dedicated skilifts.
In the federal election, a total of 465 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 57.7%.
[13] In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 464 votes were cast, of which 8 or about 1.7% were invalid.
[5] There were 591 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 39.4% of the workforce.
The number of jobs in the primary sector was 19, of which 15 were in agriculture and 3 were in forestry or lumber production.
In the tertiary sector; 34 or 12.8% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 36 or 13.5% were in the movement and storage of goods, 94 or 35.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 11 or 4.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 13 or 4.9% were technical professionals or scientists, 12 or 4.5% were in education and 50 or 18.8% were in health care.
[5] From the 2000 census[update], 943 or 80.8% were Roman Catholic, while 38 or 3.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.
The education system in the Canton of Valais allows young children to attend one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten.