Täsch
Encyclopedia
Täsch is a municipality
in the district of Visp in the canton
of Valais
in Switzerland
. It is located about 5 km (3.1 mi) north of Zermatt
. The local language is Swiss German
.
The municipality is located in the Visp district, in the Mattertal
valley, which contains almost all the highest peaks in the Alps
such as Monte Rosa
, Dom and Weisshorn
. The 4490 m (14,731 ft) high Täschhorn
lies directly above the village. It consists of the village of Täsch and the hamlets
of Zermettjen and Täschberg as well as the Täschalp hiking region.
. Car drivers can park their cars at Täsch and continue to Zermatt by train.
of the municipal coat of arms
is Gules a Fess Argent, in chief a Mullet [of Six] of the same.
Most of the population speaks German
(710 or 85.4%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian
is the second most common (36 or 4.3%) and Portuguese
is the third (32 or 3.9%). There are 7 people who speak French
, 7 people who speak Italian
and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 51.0% male and 49.0% female. The population was made up of 282 Swiss men (26.1% of the population) and 270 (25.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 283 Swiss women (26.2%) and 247 (22.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 435 or about 52.3% were born in Täsch and lived there in 2000. There were 137 or 16.5% who were born in the same canton, while 49 or 5.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 197 or 23.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 26.1% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 63.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 10.5%.
, there were 393 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 368 married individuals, 40 widows or widowers and 30 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 310 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 83 households that consist of only one person and 22 households with five or more people. , a total of 288 apartments (51.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 258 apartments (46.3%) were seasonally occupied and 11 apartments (2.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 16.6 new units per 1000 residents.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
the most popular party was the CVP
which received 53.42% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP
(25.74%), the SP
(18.84%) and the Green Party
(0.9%). In the federal election, a total of 229 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
was 48.9%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
election a total of 229 votes were cast, of which 15 or about 6.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 48.1%, which is much less than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
election a total of 229 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 49.3%, which is much less than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
the total number of full-time equivalent
jobs was 198. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 5, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 17 of which 5 or (29.4%) were in manufacturing and 12 (70.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 176. In the tertiary sector; 22 or 12.5% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 48 or 27.3% were in the movement and storage of goods, 71 or 40.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was in the information industry, 2 or 1.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 1 was a technical professional or scientist, 5 or 2.8% were in education and 22 or 12.5% were in health care.
, there were 39 workers who commuted into the municipality and 315 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 8.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 49.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 26.9% used a private car.
. Of the rest of the population, there were 8 members of an Orthodox church
(or about 0.96% of the population), there were 2 individuals (or about 0.24% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church
, and there were 10 individuals (or about 1.20% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 50 (or about 6.02% of the population) who were Islam
ic. There were 2 individuals who were Buddhist
. 16 (or about 1.93% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
or atheist
, and 21 individuals (or about 2.53% of the population) did not answer the question.
). Of the 41 who completed tertiary schooling, 56.1% were Swiss men, 22.0% were Swiss women, 12.2% were non-Swiss men.
, there was one student in Täsch who came from another municipality, while 31 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 Visp 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....
. It is located about 5 km (3.1 mi) north of Zermatt
Zermatt
Zermatt is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of about 5,800 inhabitants....
. The local language is Swiss German
Swiss German
Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
.
History
Täsch is first mentioned in 1302 as Tech. In Latin it was known as Pera.Geography
Täsch has an area, , of 58.7 square kilometre. Of this area, 11.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 9.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and 78.1% is unproductive land.The municipality is located in the Visp district, in the Mattertal
Mattertal
The Matter Valley is located in southwestern Switzerland, south of the Rhone valley in the canton of Valais. The village of Zermatt is the most important settlement of the valley, which is surrounded by many four-thousanders, including the Matterhorn.-Geography:Located in the Pennine Alps, the...
valley, which contains almost all the highest peaks in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
such as Monte Rosa
Monte Rosa
The Monte Rosa Massif is a mountain massif located in the eastern part of the Pennine Alps. It is located between Switzerland and Italy...
, Dom and Weisshorn
Weisshorn
The Weisshorn is a mountain in the Pennine Alps, in Switzerland. With its summit, it is one of the major peaks in the Alps and overtops the nearby Matterhorn by some 30 metres. It was first climbed in 1861 from Randa by John Tyndall, accompanied by the guides J.J...
. The 4490 m (14,731 ft) high Täschhorn
Täschhorn
The Täschhorn is a mountain in the Mischabelhörner group of the Pennine Alps in Switzerland, lying south of Dom.The first ascent of the mountain was by the Rev. John Llewelyn-Davies and Rev. J. W. Hayward with guides Stefan and Johann Zumtaugwald and Peter-Josef Summermatter on 30 July...
lies directly above the village. It consists of the village of Täsch and the 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...
of Zermettjen and Täschberg as well as the Täschalp hiking region.
Transportation
Zermatt is a car-free town at the end of the valley, so the only connection is the frequent train shuttle from Täsch railway stationTäsch railway station
Täsch railway station is a metre gauge railway station serving the municipality of Täsch, in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland. It forms part of the Brig-Visp-Zermatt railway , which connects the car-free mountaineering and ski resort of Zermatt with standard gauge lines at Visp and Brig .Since ,...
. Car drivers can park their cars at Täsch and continue to Zermatt by train.
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 Fess Argent, in chief a Mullet [of Six] of the same.
Demographics
Täsch has a population of . , 45.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 27.6%. It has changed at a rate of 21% due to migration and at a rate of 4.7% 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....
(710 or 85.4%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
is the second most common (36 or 4.3%) 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 (32 or 3.9%). There are 7 people who speak 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...
, 7 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...
and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 51.0% male and 49.0% female. The population was made up of 282 Swiss men (26.1% of the population) and 270 (25.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 283 Swiss women (26.2%) and 247 (22.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 435 or about 52.3% were born in Täsch and lived there in 2000. There were 137 or 16.5% who were born in the same canton, while 49 or 5.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 197 or 23.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 26.1% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 63.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 10.5%.
, there were 393 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 368 married individuals, 40 widows or widowers and 30 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 310 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 83 households that consist of only one person and 22 households with five or more people. , a total of 288 apartments (51.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 258 apartments (46.3%) were seasonally occupied and 11 apartments (2.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 16.6 new units per 1000 residents.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics
In the 2007 federal electionSwiss 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 53.42% 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...
(25.74%), the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
(18.84%) 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:...
(0.9%). In the federal election, a total of 229 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 48.9%.
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 229 votes were cast, of which 15 or about 6.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 48.1%, which is much less 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 229 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 49.3%, which is much less than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Economy
, Täsch had an unemployment rate of 6.2%. , there were 13 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 8 businesses involved in this sector. 18 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 5 businesses in this sector. 214 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 35 businesses in this sector. There were 449 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.6% 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 198. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 5, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 17 of which 5 or (29.4%) were in manufacturing and 12 (70.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 176. In the tertiary sector; 22 or 12.5% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 48 or 27.3% were in the movement and storage of goods, 71 or 40.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was in the information industry, 2 or 1.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 1 was a technical professional or scientist, 5 or 2.8% were in education and 22 or 12.5% were in health care.
, there were 39 workers who commuted into the municipality and 315 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 8.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 49.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 26.9% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 709 or 85.3% were Roman Catholic, while 18 or 2.2% 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 8 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 0.96% of the population), there were 2 individuals (or about 0.24% 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 10 individuals (or about 1.20% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 50 (or about 6.02% 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 2 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...
. 16 (or about 1.93% 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 21 individuals (or about 2.53% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Täsch about 255 or (30.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 41 or (4.9%) 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 41 who completed tertiary schooling, 56.1% were Swiss men, 22.0% were Swiss women, 12.2% were non-Swiss men.
, there was one student in Täsch who came from another municipality, while 31 residents attended schools outside the municipality.