Kippel
Encyclopedia
Kippel is a 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 Raron
Raron (district)
The district of Raron was one of the 12 districts comprising the Republic of Wallis and after 1848 the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Today it is divided into two demi-districts, which are geographically separated by the District of Brig....

 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 Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...

 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....

.

Geography

Kippel has an area, , of 11.7 square kilometre. Of this area, 2.73 square kilometre or 23.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 4.12 square kilometre or 35.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.2 square kilometre or 1.7% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.09 km² (22.2 acre) or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and 4.53 square kilometre or 38.9% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.4%. Out of the forested land, 30.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 5.8% is pastures and 17.6% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.3% is in lakes and 0.4% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 13.9% is unproductive vegetation, 23.8% is too rocky for vegetation and 1.2% of the land is covered by glaciers.

The municipality is located in the Westlich Raron district, in the upper Lötschental
Lötschental
The Lötschental is the largest valley on the northern side of the Rhône valley in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It lies in the Bernese Alps, with the river Lonza running down the length of the valley from its source within the Langgletscher....

 valley. It is the largest of the villages of the Lötschental valley.

Coat of arms

The blazon
Blazon
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 Saltire couped Argent between two Mullets of Five Or.

Demographics

Kippel has a population of . , 2.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of -2.4%. It has changed at a rate of -9.2% due to migration and at a rate of -0.5% due to births and deaths.

Most of the population speaks 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....

 (365 or 99.2%) as their first language with the rest speaking French
French 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...



, the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The population was made up of 183 Swiss men (49.5% of the population) and 3 (0.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 177 Swiss women (47.8%) and 7 (1.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 259 or about 70.4% were born in Kippel and lived there in 2000. There were 82 or 22.3% who were born in the same canton, while 19 or 5.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 7 or 1.9% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 22.3% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 57.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.1%.

, there were 177 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 161 married individuals, 29 widows or widowers and 1 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 134 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 36 households that consist of only one person and 13 households with five or more people. , a total of 134 apartments (53.0% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 89 apartments (35.2%) were seasonally occupied and 30 apartments (11.9%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.65%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Sights

The entire village of Kippel is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
The Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage.-Sites of national importance:-Types:...


Politics

In 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...

 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 72.19% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (11.72%), 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...

 (10.89%) and the Green Party
Green Party of Switzerland
The Green Party of Switzerland is the fifth-largest party in the National Council of Switzerland, and the largest party that is not represented on the Federal Council.-History:...

 (2.39%). In the federal election, a total of 191 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

 was 60.8%.

In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
Conseil d'Etat (Switzerland)
In Switzerland, Conseil d'Etat is the name of the council constituting the cantonal government of French-speaking cantons. It is not to be confused with the Conseil des États which is a chamber of the Swiss parliament....

 election a total of 223 votes were cast, of which 9 or about 4.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 76.9%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
Swiss Council of States election, 2007
Elections were held to the Council of States of Switzerland in October and November 2007 as part of the 2007 federal election. All 46 members of the Council of States were elected from all cantons of Switzerland. The first round was held on 21 October...

 election a total of 190 votes were cast, of which 16 or about 8.4% were invalid. The voter participation was 61.9%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Kippel had an unemployment rate of 0.9%. , there were 9 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 1 person was employed in the secondary sector and there was 1 business in this sector. 90 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 16 businesses in this sector. There were 191 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.4% 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 74. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 3, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 1, in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 70. In the tertiary sector; 9 or 12.9% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 18 or 25.7% were in the movement and storage of goods, 15 or 21.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 2.9% were the insurance or financial industry and 20 or 28.6% were in health care.

, there were 35 workers who commuted into the municipality and 113 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 3.2 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 16.8% used public transportation to get to work, and 34.6% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 361 or 98.1% were Roman Catholic, while 6 or 1.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
Swiss 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...

. 1 person belonged to no church, was 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...

.

Education

In Kippel about 143 or (38.9%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 23 or (6.3%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule
Fachhochschule
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 23 who completed tertiary schooling, 73.9% were Swiss men, 21.7% were Swiss women.

, there were 40 students in Kippel who came from another municipality, while 22 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

External links

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