At the beginning of the 1950s Kloten was still a quiet farming village. Traffic, trade and industry had as yet hardly intruded on the scene. Kloten first developed into a suburban centre with the building and expansion of the airport in the Glatttal plain. The Zurich-Kloten commercial airport, built between 1946 and 1948, has since undergone several stages of expansion and is now Switzerland’s largest airport.

With the boom in air traffic and ancillary businesses, the number of job and population rocketed, initiating an enormous amount of building activity and urbanization in Kloten and its surroundings. The airport motorway (A51) was built in the 1960s, the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) underground railway station at Zurich airport opened in 1980. In recent years, Kloten’s convenient position has again attracted countless new businesses. Modern business parks with many jobs have been created.

The landscape around Kloten has been shaped by glaciers. Gravel knolls and tracts of moraine today form a contrast to the extensive plain in which the Klotener Ried (fen) formed, the largest plain in Canton Zurich. Only a small part of the Klotener Ried now remains, the rest having had to give way to airport pistes and buildings.

With over 500,000 annual visitors, Zurich airport is one of Switzerland’s most popular and impressive excursion destinations. Restaurants and shops are open daily, from early morning till late evening and spectator terraces give close-up views of air traffic. Round tours with commentary offer a look behind the scenes and various round flights give a bird’s-eye view.

Kloten has several major nature reserves with the Eigental, Bettensee lake, Nägelimoos and the «Golden Gate». Together with the vantage point on the Gerlisberg and the extensive natural landscape around the town, there are still quiet corners for those in search of peace and quiet and plenty of space for fans of hiking, cycling and inline skating.