Zug is renowned as a hub for some of the wealthiest individuals in the world and is known for its high concentration of wealth. The municipality had a total population of 30, on 31 December Its name, translating from German as "pull" or "tug", originates from the fishing vocabulary; in the Middle Ages it referred to the right to pull up fishing nets and hence to the right to fish. The oldest evidence of humans in the area trace back to 14, BC. There have been Paleolithic finds on the north bank of Lake Zug , which come from nomadic hunters and gatherers.
Archaeologists have also found over forty lake-shore settlements, known as pile dwellings , on the shores of Lake Zug from the epoch of the first settled farmers in the Neolithic period 5,, BC. The peak in these lake-shore village settlements was between and BC. The well-known, historically researched lake-shore village ' Sumpf ' the swamp , dated from the late Bronze Age up until BC.
Evidence from these finds resulted in a quite different picture of life in former times, which is on display at the Zug Museum for Prehistory. In around AD , Alemannic families and tribes migrated to the area of present-day canton Zug.
The name Blickensdorf, and place names with '-ikon' endings, prove this as the first Alemannic living space. At this time, the area of present-day Zug belonged to completely different monastic and secular landlords, the most important of whom were the Habsburgs, and who, in , inherited the Kyburg rights and remained a central political power until about In the course of the high medieval town construction, the settlement of Zug also received a town wall at some point after The town founders were probably the counts of Kyburg.
The town, first mentioned in AD , was called an " oppidum " in and a " castrum " in In , it was bought by Rudolph of Habsburg from Anna, the heiress of Kyburg and wife of Eberhard, head of the cadet line of Habsburg. The Aeusser Amt or Outer District consisted of the villages and towns surrounding Zug, which each had their own Landsgemeinden but were ruled by a single Habsburg bailiff. Zug was important as an administrative center of the Kyburg and the Habsburg district, then as a local market place, and, thereafter, as a stage town for the transport of goods particularly salt and iron over the Hirzel hill towards Lucerne.
