Sankt Johann in Tirol, called Sainihåns () in the local dialect, is a market municipality in the Kitzbühel district of Tyrol, Austria. In the regional ductus, the last syllable of the name is stressed as "Sankt yo-Hahn'" ().
Geography
St. Johann in Tyrol is located in the center of the Leukental in the Tyrolean Unterland. The municipality is situated in a wide glacial cirque, intersected by the Leukental in a broadly north-south direction. Northwest of St. Johann are the Wilder Kaiser, the southern range of the Kaisergebirge in the Northern Limestone Alps. To the east is the mountain group of the Loferer and Leoganger Steinberge. Extending to the southeast is the valley of the . In the south is the Kitzbüheler Horn, a nearly mountain that sits at the centre of the Kitzbühel district and is part of the Kitzbühel Alps.
Due to its location in a valley basin, St. Johann in Tyrol is largely spared from the Alpenföhn storms that plague the Inntal to the east-northeast, but gets extremely abundant snowfalls due to its location on the southern, windward side of the Wilder Kaiser. The town center sits at an altitude of above sea level. The municipal area covers an area of and the highest elevation within the municipality is the Maukspitze in the Wilder Kaiser with a height of above sea level.
The Großache, the principal river of the Leukental, flows through the center of St. Johann in Tirol; the section flowing north from Kitzbühel to St. Johann is known as the Kitzbüheler Ache. Several tributaries join the Großache within the municipality of St. Johann: the (called the Aschauer Ache in its upper course) joins the main stream south of the town proper and the Fieberbrunner Ache joins to the north of the town centre. The Großache ultimately empties into the Chiemsee in Bavaria as the .
The town’s train station serves as a regional transport hub and several federal highways (Bundesstraßen) intersect in the municipality. The (B 178) runs from west to northeast through the municipality. Traveling west from St. Johann, the Loferer Straße leads into the Sölllandl valley and region via Going am Wilden Kaiser and, traveling northeast, it continues through the Leukental towards Kirchdorf in Tirol. The (B 176) branches from the Loferer Straße to extend north of St. Johann into the Kohlental towards Schwendt via the Huberhöhe mountain pass. Following along the Fieberbrunner Ache, the Hochkönigstraße (B 164) branches from the Loferer Straße to run southeast from St. Johann towards Fieberbrunn.
Subsidiary settlements
The municipality of St. Johann in Tirol includes the (hamlets) and (villages) of Almdorf, Apfeldorf, Bärnstetten, Berglehen, Fricking, Hinterkaiser, Mitterndorf, Niederhofen, Oberhofen, Reitham, Rettenbach, Scheffau, Sperten, Taxa, Weiberndorf, Weitau, Winkl Schattseite, and Winkl Sonnseite.
Population
On the day of the census in 2001 (final result in 2004) St. Johann had 7,959 inhabitants. The population of the town is steadily increasing; in 2004 it was growing at 1.8 per cent. Since autumn 2007 St. Johann in Tirol has been the most populous municipality in the district of Kitzbühel.
History
St. Johann is situated in the Leukental, which extends from Jochberg to the Streichen close to the Bavarian border. This region was already settled in the 4th century BC by a Celtic tribe, the Ambisontiers, who pursued copper mining in the surrounding mountains.
In 15 BC the Romans conquered the Eastern Alpine region and the Leukental became part of the Roman province of Noricum. Following the downfall of the West Roman Empire in 476 AD the region went to the Duchy of Bavaria in the 7th century in the wake of the European migrations and as result of the settlement of the Germanic tribe of the Bavarii.
In the following centuries the nobles of the House of Liuchinger, after whom the Leukental is named, established a county in the valley. The Liuchingers lived at Leukenstein Castle, which is located at the foot of the Niederkaiser. The exact site of the castle, which was also the judicial seat for the county, is no longer known today, but is recalled by the farm name of Burgwiesen ("castle meadows"). Following the extinction of the Liuchingers around 1170, their county ended up in the hands of the Falkensteins, but this noble family also died out after just 70 years and the county in the Leukental was subsequently ruled by officials representing the Bavarian dukes.