Wald (German pronunciation: [valt] ⓘ) is a village and a municipality in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.

[3] Industrialisation in the 19th century turned Wald into an important business location with numerous spinning and weaving mills.

Wald was the first rural municipality in the canton of Zurich to introduce weapons training for secondary school pupils in 1851.

[4] This tradition survived in customs in the form of "boys' parades" (Umezug) with muzzle-loading shooting at carnival time.

In the 1860s, the Oberholzer family of factory owners promoted social welfare by establishing workers' housing and day nurseries.

Water-rich streams and rivers flow through the municipality and their water power was utilised from the middle of the 19th century: Mechanical spinning mills were the first to set up along Wald's waterways.

A large number of weaving mills were established, making Wald the textile metropolis of the Zurich Oberland.

Of the rest of the land, 12% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.8%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).