Charmey
Encyclopedia
Charmey is a municipality
in the district of Gruyère
in the canton
of Fribourg in Switzerland
.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.7%. Out of the forested land, 31.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 5.2% is pastures and 39.7% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.5% is in lakes and 0.4% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 9.7% is unproductive vegetation and 6.1% is too rocky for vegetation.
The municipality is located in the Gruyère district, in the Jaun stream valley. It is the largest municipality in the canton. It consists of the village of Charmey, six hamlets
and a number of small alpine settlements and camps.
The lake Schwarzsee
/Lac Noir is located partially in the municipality.
of the municipal coat of arms
is Gules, a bend Argent, overall a Pine Tree Vert issuant from Triple Caves Sable.
(1,385 or 88.0%) as their first language, German
is the second most common (115 or 7.3%) and Portuguese
is the third (27 or 1.7%). There are 2 people who speak Italian
.
, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 770 Swiss men (41.8% of the population) and 131 (7.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 826 Swiss women (44.9%) and 113 (6.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 742 or about 47.1% were born in Charmey and lived there in 2000. There were 402 or 25.5% who were born in the same canton, while 175 or 11.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 182 or 11.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 26% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 55.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 18.7%. , there were 630 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 745 married individuals, 120 widows or widowers and 79 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 614 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 181 households that consist of only one person and 40 households with five or more people. , a total of 602 apartments (55.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 403 apartments (37.3%) were seasonally occupied and 74 apartments (6.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 28.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.55%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
.
the most popular party was the CVP
which received 26.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP
(22.1%), the FDP
(19.8%) and the SP
(19.0%).
The CVP lost about 12.1% of the vote when compared to the 2007 Federal election
(39.0% in 2007 vs 26.9% in 2011). The SVP moved from third in 2007 (with 18.9%) to second in 2011, the FDP moved from second in 2007 (with 19.4%) to third and the SPS retained about the same popularity (15.1% in 2007). A total of 681 votes were cast in this election, of which 7 or 1.0% were invalid.
the total number of full-time equivalent
jobs was 614. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 68, of which 45 were in agriculture and 23 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 222 of which 72 or (32.4%) were in manufacturing and 141 (63.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 324. In the tertiary sector; 70 or 21.6% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 9 or 2.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 83 or 25.6% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 0.6% were in the information industry, 11 or 3.4% were the insurance or financial industry, 9 or 2.8% were technical professionals or scientists, 17 or 5.2% were in education and 60 or 18.5% were in health care.
, there were 226 workers who commuted into the municipality and 339 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 6.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 68% used a private car.
. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 members of an Orthodox church
(or about 0.19% of the population), and there were 6 individuals (or about 0.38% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 28 (or about 1.78% of the population) who were Islam
ic. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 60 (or about 3.81% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
or atheist
, and 75 individuals (or about 4.76% of the population) did not answer the question.
). Of the 128 who completed tertiary schooling, 58.6% were Swiss men, 26.6% were Swiss women, 9.4% were non-Swiss men and 5.5% were non-Swiss women.
The Canton of Fribourg school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten
, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend a three or four year optional upper Secondary school. The upper Secondary school is divided into gymnasium
(university preparatory) and vocational programs. After they finish the upper Secondary program, students may choose to attend a Tertiary school or continue their apprenticeship
.
During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 146 students attending 7 classes in Charmey. A total of 299 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There were no kindergarten classes in the municipality, but 23 students attended kindergarten in a neighboring municipality. The municipality had 7 primary classes and 146 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 62 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 14 upper Secondary students and 66 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 2 non-university Tertiary students and 4 specialized Tertiary students who attended classes in another municipality.
, there were 14 students in Charmey who came from another municipality, while 117 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
Municipalities of Switzerland
Communes , also known as municipalities, are the smallest government division in Switzerland, numbering 2,596 . While many have a population of a few hundred citizens, the largest cities such as Zürich or Geneva also have the legal status of municipalities...
in the district of Gruyère
Gruyère (district)
Gruyère District is a district of the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. It has a population of . Its capital is Bulle.-Municipalities:-Mergers and name changes:...
in the canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
of Fribourg in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
History
Charmey is first mentioned in 1211 as Chalmeis. Until 1760 it was known as Feiguières. The municipality is also informally known by its German name Galmis.Geography
Charmey has an area, , of 78.5 square kilometre. Of this area, 35.25 square kilometre or 44.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 28.56 square kilometre or 36.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.62 square kilometre or 2.1% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.66 square kilometre or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and 12.38 square kilometre or 15.8% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.7%. Out of the forested land, 31.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 5.2% is pastures and 39.7% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.5% is in lakes and 0.4% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 9.7% is unproductive vegetation and 6.1% is too rocky for vegetation.
The municipality is located in the Gruyère district, in the Jaun stream valley. It is the largest municipality in the canton. It consists of the village of Charmey, six hamlets
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
and a number of small alpine settlements and camps.
The lake Schwarzsee
Schwarzsee
Schwarzsee is a small lake in the Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland with an area of 0.47 km²...
/Lac Noir is located partially in the municipality.
Coat of arms
The blazonBlazon
In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image...
of the municipal coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
is Gules, a bend Argent, overall a Pine Tree Vert issuant from Triple Caves Sable.
Demographics
Charmey has a population of . , 12.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 16.7%. Migration accounted for 17.5%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.1%. Most of the population speaks FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
(1,385 or 88.0%) as their first language, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
is the second most common (115 or 7.3%) and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
is the third (27 or 1.7%). There are 2 people who speak Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 770 Swiss men (41.8% of the population) and 131 (7.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 826 Swiss women (44.9%) and 113 (6.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 742 or about 47.1% were born in Charmey and lived there in 2000. There were 402 or 25.5% who were born in the same canton, while 175 or 11.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 182 or 11.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 26% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 55.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 18.7%. , there were 630 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 745 married individuals, 120 widows or widowers and 79 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 614 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 181 households that consist of only one person and 40 households with five or more people. , a total of 602 apartments (55.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 403 apartments (37.3%) were seasonally occupied and 74 apartments (6.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 28.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.55%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance
The alpine chalet at Le Lapé 320 and the alpine chalet at Pra de La Monse 249 are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significanceSwiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance
The Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance is a register of some 8,300 items of cultural property in Switzerland...
.
Politics
In the 2011 federal electionSwiss federal election, 2011
Federal elections were held in Switzerland on 23 October 2011.All of the Federal Assembly were to be elected: all 200 seats in the National Council and all 46 seats in the Council of States....
the most popular party was the CVP
Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland
The Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland is a Christian democratic political party in Switzerland. It is the fourth-largest party in the National Council, with 31 seats, and the largest in the Council of States, with 15 seats. It has one seat, that of Doris Leuthard, on the Swiss...
which received 26.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP
Swiss People's Party
The Swiss People's Party , also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre , is a conservative political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Toni Brunner, but spearheaded by Christoph Blocher, the party is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 58 members of the National Council and 6 of...
(22.1%), the FDP
FDP.The Liberals
FDP.The Liberals is a classical liberal political party in Switzerland. It is the joint-largest party in the Federal Council, third-largest party in the National Council, and second-largest in the Council of States....
(19.8%) and the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
(19.0%).
The CVP lost about 12.1% of the vote when compared to the 2007 Federal election
Swiss federal election, 2007
Elections to the Swiss Federal Assembly, the federal parliament of Switzerland, were held on Sunday, 21 October 2007. In a few cantons, a second round of the elections to the Council of States was held on 11 November, 18 November, and 25 November 2007...
(39.0% in 2007 vs 26.9% in 2011). The SVP moved from third in 2007 (with 18.9%) to second in 2011, the FDP moved from second in 2007 (with 19.4%) to third and the SPS retained about the same popularity (15.1% in 2007). A total of 681 votes were cast in this election, of which 7 or 1.0% were invalid.
Economy
, Charmey had an unemployment rate of 2.4%. , there were 92 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 26 businesses involved in this sector. 240 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 27 businesses in this sector. 418 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 60 businesses in this sector. There were 728 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.2% of the workforce.the total number of full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...
jobs was 614. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 68, of which 45 were in agriculture and 23 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 222 of which 72 or (32.4%) were in manufacturing and 141 (63.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 324. In the tertiary sector; 70 or 21.6% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 9 or 2.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 83 or 25.6% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 0.6% were in the information industry, 11 or 3.4% were the insurance or financial industry, 9 or 2.8% were technical professionals or scientists, 17 or 5.2% were in education and 60 or 18.5% were in health care.
, there were 226 workers who commuted into the municipality and 339 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 6.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 68% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 1,316 or 83.6% were Roman Catholic, while 88 or 5.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed ChurchSwiss Reformed Church
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...
. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 members of an Orthodox church
Orthodox Christianity
The term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* the Eastern Orthodox Church and its various geographical subdivisions...
(or about 0.19% of the population), and there were 6 individuals (or about 0.38% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 28 (or about 1.78% of the population) who were Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 60 (or about 3.81% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
or atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, and 75 individuals (or about 4.76% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Charmey about 479 or (30.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 128 or (8.1%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a FachhochschuleFachhochschule
A Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...
). Of the 128 who completed tertiary schooling, 58.6% were Swiss men, 26.6% were Swiss women, 9.4% were non-Swiss men and 5.5% were non-Swiss women.
The Canton of Fribourg school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend a three or four year optional upper Secondary school. The upper Secondary school is divided into gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
(university preparatory) and vocational programs. After they finish the upper Secondary program, students may choose to attend a Tertiary school or continue their apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
.
During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 146 students attending 7 classes in Charmey. A total of 299 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There were no kindergarten classes in the municipality, but 23 students attended kindergarten in a neighboring municipality. The municipality had 7 primary classes and 146 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 62 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 14 upper Secondary students and 66 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 2 non-university Tertiary students and 4 specialized Tertiary students who attended classes in another municipality.
, there were 14 students in Charmey who came from another municipality, while 117 residents attended schools outside the municipality.