The patron saint of Ortisei is Saint Ulrich of Augsburg, celebrated on 4 July: the town's German name, Sankt Ulrich, documented since 1366, is the German version of the saint, whose church owned large landholdings in the area throughout the Middle Ages. The parish church dedicated to him, today also named after the Epiphany of the Lord, was built in Neoclassical style with Baroque elements in the late 18th century, on the site where a first mountain church already stood from 1400; it preserves a rich array of paintings and numerous wooden statues by local artists. The municipal coat of arms depicts the saint fitted out in episcopal vestments with a gold cross in his hand, riding a horse over three green mountain peaks.
The town's Ladin toponym, Urtijëi, attested as Ortiseit as early as 1288, instead derives from the Latin urticetum, «place of nettles». Ortisei is today the largest and most populous settlement in Val Gardena, known worldwide for its tradition of wood carving; the town is also home to the Val Gardena Museum, which preserves geological, palaeontological and archaeological finds from the area alongside a collection of wooden sculptures and toys, while local schools provide instruction in Italian, German and Ladin.
