DAVOS, a mountain valley in the Swiss canton of the Grisons (Romansch Tavau), lying east of Coire (4o m. distant by rail), and north-west of the Lower Engadine (18 m. by road from Sus). It contains two main villages, 2 m. from each other, Dorfli and Platz (the chief hamlet), which are 5,015 ft. above sea-level, and had a population in 193o of 11,164, a figure exceeded in the Gri sons only by Coire. Of the population in 192o 5,885 were Protes tants, 3,309 Romanists and 163 Jews; while 7,776 were German speaking and 43o Romansch-speaking. Tavaus or Tavauns is mentioned in 116o and 1213, as a mountain pasture or "alp." It was then in the hands of a Romansch-speaking population, as is shown by many surviving field names. But between 126o and 1282, German-speaking colonists from the Upper Valais were planted there, so that it has long been a Teutonic island in the midst of a Romansch-speaking population. Historically it is asso ciated with the Prattigau or Landquart valley to the north, and in 1436 became the capital of the League of the Ten Jurisdictions. (See GRIsoNs.) It formerly contained many iron mines, and belonged from 1477 to 1649 to the Austrian Habsburgs.
In 186o the population was only 1,705; the increase being due to the fact that the region is much frequented as a winter resort and has many sanatoria, etc. At the north end of the valley is lake Davos, while from Platz the Landwasserstrasse leads (2o m.) down to the Alvaneubad station.