Bäretswil is first mentioned in 741 as Berofovilare. In 745 it was mentioned as Perolfeswilari.
Geography
Bäretswil has an area of. Of this area, 51.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 39.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 8.2% is settled and the remainder is non-productive. housing and buildings made up 5.4% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest. Of the total unproductive area, water made up 0.2% of the area. 4.7% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction. The municipality is located in the hills between the Glatt and Töss Valleys. It includes the villages of Bäretswil and Adetswil as well as the hamlets of Bettswil, Wappenswil, Hof-Neuthal, Tanne and Klein Bäretswil and scattered individual homes. The old cotton mill, pictured, now houses museums of and machinery.
Demographics
Bäretswil has a population of. , 8.9% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. the gender distribution of the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 10.2%. Most of the population speaks German , with Italian being second most common and Albanian being third. In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 46.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CSP, the SPS and the FDP. The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers make up 26.7% of the population, while adults make up 62.4% and seniors make up 10.9%. The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Bäretswil about 80.3% of the population have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education. There are 1649 households in Bäretswil. Bäretswil has an unemployment rate of 1.37%. , there were 204 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 73 businesses involved in this sector. 312 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 70 businesses in this sector. 549 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 120 businesses in this sector. 47.6% of the working population were employed full-time, and 52.4% were employed part-time. there were 898 Catholics and 2444 Protestants in Bäretswil. In the, religion was broken down into several smaller categories. From the 2000 census, 60.4% were some type of Protestant, with 56.1% belonging to the Swiss Reformed Church and 4.3% belonging to other Protestant churches. 22.1% of the population were Catholic. Of the rest of the population, 0% were Muslim, 3.4% belonged to another religion, 2.9% did not give a religion, and 10.7% were atheist or agnostic. The historical population is given in the following table:
