Tarasp

Tarasp lies in the Lower Engadine near the River Inn, beneath the Sesvenna mountains. Its castle was the centre of a lordship established in the eleventh century and claimed for generations by the bishop of Chur and the counts of Tyrol. After the local lords died out, their possessions became a Tyrolean fief in 1239, administered by the counts of Matsch.

The Matsch family continued to govern Tarasp after the Habsburgs acquired Tyrol in 1363. Frederick of Toggenburg held it from 1422 until his death in 1436, after which it returned to Matsch hands. Sold to the Habsburgs in 1463, Tarasp became an Austrian enclave among the communities of the Three Leagues. Emperor Leopold I granted the lordship to the princes of Dietrichstein in 1687. Austria ceded it in 1803, and it joined the Swiss canton of Graubünden.