Vex, Switzerland
Encyclopedia
Vex is a municipality
and capital of the district of Hérens
in the canton
of Valais
in Switzerland
.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.8%. Out of the forested land, 38.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 7.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.2% is used for growing crops and 18.3% is pastures, while 2.5% is used for orchards or vine crops and 11.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 5.7% is unproductive vegetation.
of the municipal coat of arms
is Azure, a Chevronelle inverted couped Argent between three Mullets of Five of the same and Coupeaux Vert in base.
Most of the population speaks French
(1,216 or 92.8%) as their first language, German
is the second most common (38 or 2.9%) and Portuguese
is the third (30 or 2.3%). There are 4 people who speak Italian
.
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.7% male and 49.3% female. The population was made up of 724 Swiss men (44.4% of the population) and 103 (6.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 721 Swiss women (44.2%) and 83 (5.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 535 or about 40.8% were born in Vex and lived there in 2000. There were 350 or 26.7% who were born in the same canton, while 157 or 12.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 173 or 13.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 56.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19%.
, there were 526 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 604 married individuals, 126 widows or widowers and 55 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.58 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.63 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 73.5% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage
or a rent-to-own agreement).
, there were 514 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 180 households that consist of only one person and 28 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 528 households that answered this question, 34.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 6 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 129 married couples without children, 169 married couples with children There were 24 single parents with a child or children. There were 6 households that were made up of unrelated people and 14 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 626 single family homes (or 72.3% of the total) out of a total of 866 inhabited buildings. There were 135 multi-family buildings (15.6%), along with 51 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (5.9%) and 54 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.2%).
, a total of 498 apartments (28.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 1,186 apartments (67.7%) were seasonally occupied and 69 apartments (3.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 15.3 new units per 1000 residents.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
the most popular party was the CVP
which received 37.97% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP
(21.97%), the SVP
(19.71%) and the SP
(12.57%). In the federal election, a total of 724 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
was 68.6%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
election a total of 676 votes were cast, of which 41 or about 6.1% were invalid. The voter participation was 63.3%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
election a total of 718 votes were cast, of which 52 or about 7.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 69.4%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
the total number of full-time equivalent
jobs was 331. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 34, of which 20 were in agriculture and 14 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 54 of which 1 was in manufacturing and 53 (98.1%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 243. In the tertiary sector; 42 or 17.3% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 16 or 6.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 55 or 22.6% were in a hotel or restaurant, 13 or 5.3% were the insurance or financial industry, 6 or 2.5% were technical professionals or scientists, 10 or 4.1% were in education and 53 or 21.8% were in health care.
, there were 153 workers who commuted into the municipality and 406 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.7 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 8.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 71.4% used a private car.
. Of the rest of the population, there were 5 members of an Orthodox church
(or about 0.38% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church
, and there was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish
, and 4 (or about 0.31% of the population) who were Islam
ic. There was 1 person who was Buddhist
and 1 individual who belonged to another church. 57 (or about 4.35% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
or atheist
, and 115 individuals (or about 8.77% of the population) did not answer the question.
). Of the 125 who completed tertiary schooling, 57.6% were Swiss men, 28.8% were Swiss women, 7.2% were non-Swiss men and 6.4% were non-Swiss women. , there were 25 students in Vex who came from another municipality, while 69 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
Vex is home to the Bibliothèque de Vex library. The library has 4,671 books or other media, and loaned out 6,911 items in the same year. It was open a total of 79 days with average of 6 hours per week during that year.
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...
and capital of the district of Hérens
Hérens (district)
The district of Hérens is a district in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of .-Geography:Except for the municipality of Ayent, which lies on the north bank of the Rhône, the municipalities of Hérens are located in the Val d'Hérens on the south bank of the...
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
Vex has an area, , of 13 square kilometre. Of this area, 4.17 square kilometre or 32.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 6.17 square kilometre or 47.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.71 square kilometre or 13.2% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.07 km² (17.3 acre) or 0.5% is either rivers or lakes and 0.87 square kilometre or 6.7% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.8%. Out of the forested land, 38.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 7.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.2% is used for growing crops and 18.3% is pastures, while 2.5% is used for orchards or vine crops and 11.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 5.7% is unproductive vegetation.
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 Azure, a Chevronelle inverted couped Argent between three Mullets of Five of the same and Coupeaux Vert in base.
Demographics
Vex has a population of . , 11.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 23.8%. It has changed at a rate of 23% due to migration and at a rate of -0.7% due to births and deaths.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...
(1,216 or 92.8%) 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 (38 or 2.9%) 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 (30 or 2.3%). There are 4 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 gender distribution of the population was 50.7% male and 49.3% female. The population was made up of 724 Swiss men (44.4% of the population) and 103 (6.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 721 Swiss women (44.2%) and 83 (5.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 535 or about 40.8% were born in Vex and lived there in 2000. There were 350 or 26.7% who were born in the same canton, while 157 or 12.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 173 or 13.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 56.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19%.
, there were 526 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 604 married individuals, 126 widows or widowers and 55 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.58 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.63 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 73.5% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...
or a rent-to-own agreement).
, there were 514 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 180 households that consist of only one person and 28 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 528 households that answered this question, 34.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 6 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 129 married couples without children, 169 married couples with children There were 24 single parents with a child or children. There were 6 households that were made up of unrelated people and 14 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 626 single family homes (or 72.3% of the total) out of a total of 866 inhabited buildings. There were 135 multi-family buildings (15.6%), along with 51 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (5.9%) and 54 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.2%).
, a total of 498 apartments (28.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 1,186 apartments (67.7%) were seasonally occupied and 69 apartments (3.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 15.3 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 37.97% 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....
(21.97%), 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...
(19.71%) and the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
(12.57%). In the federal election, a total of 724 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 68.6%.
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 676 votes were cast, of which 41 or about 6.1% were invalid. The voter participation was 63.3%, 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 718 votes were cast, of which 52 or about 7.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 69.4%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Economy
, Vex had an unemployment rate of 2.8%. , there were 50 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 18 businesses involved in this sector. 58 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 11 businesses in this sector. 309 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 57 businesses in this sector. There were 644 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.3% 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 331. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 34, of which 20 were in agriculture and 14 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 54 of which 1 was in manufacturing and 53 (98.1%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 243. In the tertiary sector; 42 or 17.3% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 16 or 6.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 55 or 22.6% were in a hotel or restaurant, 13 or 5.3% were the insurance or financial industry, 6 or 2.5% were technical professionals or scientists, 10 or 4.1% were in education and 53 or 21.8% were in health care.
, there were 153 workers who commuted into the municipality and 406 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.7 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 8.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 71.4% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 1,047 or 79.9% were Roman Catholic, while 78 or 5.9% 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 5 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 0.38% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs 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 was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, and 4 (or about 0.31% 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 was 1 person who was 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...
and 1 individual who belonged to another church. 57 (or about 4.35% 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 115 individuals (or about 8.77% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Vex about 448 or (34.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 125 or (9.5%) 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 125 who completed tertiary schooling, 57.6% were Swiss men, 28.8% were Swiss women, 7.2% were non-Swiss men and 6.4% were non-Swiss women. , there were 25 students in Vex who came from another municipality, while 69 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
Vex is home to the Bibliothèque de Vex library. The library has 4,671 books or other media, and loaned out 6,911 items in the same year. It was open a total of 79 days with average of 6 hours per week during that year.