Demographics

Sierre has a population of . Most of the population speaks 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...

 (32,090 or 80.2%) 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 (3,240 or 8.1%) and 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...

 is the third (1,522 or 3.8%). There are 15 people who speak Romansh.

, the gender distribution of the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 16,070 Swiss men (35.0% of the population) and 6,533 (14.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 17,331 Swiss women (37.8%) and 5,970 (13.0%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 15,421 or about 38.5% were born in Sierre and lived there in 2000. There were 10,133 or 25.3% who were born in the same canton, while 4,100 or 10.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9,037 or 22.6% were born outside of Switzerland.

, there were 15,872 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 19,763 married individuals, 2,406 widows or widowers and 1,977 individuals who are divorced.

There were 5,349 households that consist of only one person and 968 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 16,811 households that answered this question, 31.8% were households made up of just one person and there were 166 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 4,312 married couples without children, 5,215 married couples with children There were 941 single parents with a child or children. There were 225 households that were made up of unrelated people and 603 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Mergers and name changes

On 1 January 2009 the municipalities of Val d'Anniviers

Val d'Anniviers

The val d'Anniviers is a Swiss alpine valley, situated in the district of Sierre in Valais, which extends south of the Rhône Valley. The valley was home to six municipalities: Ayer, Chandolin, Grimentz, Saint-Jean, Saint-Luc, Vissoie, Vercorin and Zinal. The citizens of those municipalities agreed...

 (Ayer

Ayer, Switzerland

Ayer is a village in the district of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. An independent municipality before, it merged on 1 January 2009 with neighboring Chandolin, Grimentz, Saint Jean, Saint-Luc and Vissoie to form the municipality of Anniviers....

, Chandolin

Chandolin

Chandolin is a village in the district of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. An independent municipality before, it merged on 1 January 2009 with neighboring Ayer, Grimentz, Saint Jean, Saint-Luc and Vissoie to form the municipality of Anniviers.-History:...

, Grimentz

Grimentz

Grimentz is a village in the district of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. An independent municipality before, it merged on 1 January 2009 with neighboring Ayer, Chandolin, Saint Jean, Saint-Luc and Vissoie to form the municipality of Anniviers.-History:...

, Saint-Jean

Saint-Jean, Switzerland

Saint-Jean is a village in the district of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais. An independent municipality before, it merged on 1 January 2009 with neighboring Ayer, Chandolin, Grimentz, Saint-Luc and Vissoie to form the municipality of Anniviers....

, Saint-Luc and Vissoie

Vissoie

Vissoie is a village in the district of Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais.The village became an independent municipality in 1905 when it split from the municipalities of Ayer and Grimentz. However, on 1 January 2009 it merged with neighboring Ayer, Chandolin, Grimentz, Saint Jean and Saint-Luc...

) merged together to form Anniviers.

At the same time Granges (VS) merged into the municipality of Sierre

Sierre

Sierre is the capital of the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of 14,355.It is situated on the French–German language border of the canton of Wallis...

.

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 37.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were 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....

 (18.35%), the SP

Social Democratic Party of Switzerland

The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (17.81%) and 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...

 (15.85%). In the federal election, a total of 16,632 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 61.3%.

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 15,565 votes were cast, of which 1,099 or about 7.1% were invalid. The voter participation was 57.9%, which is similar to 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 16,401 votes were cast, of which 1,251 or about 7.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 61.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Religion

From the , 31,439 or 78.6% were Roman Catholic, while 2,146 or 5.4% 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...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 1,015 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 2.54% of the population), there were 17 individuals (or about 0.04% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church

Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland

The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is the Swiss member church of the Union of Utrecht, also known as Old Catholic Church, originally founded by the jansenists, with a later influx of discontented Catholics following their disappointment with the First Vatican Council. It has 14,000...

, and there were 637 individuals (or about 1.59% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 62 individuals (or about 0.15% of the population) who were Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and 719 (or about 1.80% 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 56 individuals who were Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

, 49 individuals who were Hindu

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 and 59 individuals who belonged to another church. 1,945 (or about 4.86% 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 2,169 individuals (or about 5.42% of the population) did not answer the question.

Weather

Sierre town has an average of 87.2 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives 657 mm (25.9 in) of precipitation

Precipitation (meteorology)

In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...

. The wettest month is December during which time Sierre receives an average of 72 mm (2.8 in) of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 7.9 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is August, with an average of 8.4, but with only 58 mm (2.3 in) of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is September with an average of 37 mm (1.5 in) of precipitation over 5.7 days.

Education

In Sierre about 13,162 or (32.9%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 4,878 or (12.2%) 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 4,878 who completed tertiary schooling, 53.6% were Swiss men, 26.8% were Swiss women, 11.3% were non-Swiss men and 8.3% were non-Swiss women.