Villaz-Saint-Pierre
Encyclopedia
Villaz-Saint-Pierre 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 Glâne
Glâne (district)
Glâne District is a one of seven districts in the Canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. It has a population of .-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....

.

Geography

Villaz-Saint-Pierre has an area, , of 5.6 square kilometre. Of this area, 3.44 square kilometre or 61.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.32 square kilometre or 23.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.74 square kilometre or 13.2% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.03 km² (7.4 acre) or 0.5% is either rivers or lakes.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 32.0% is used for growing crops and 29.0% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

It consists of the villages of Villaz-Saint-Pierre and Fuyens. On 1 January 1978 the former municipality of Fuyens merged into the municipality of Villaz-Saint-Pierre.

Demographics

Villaz-Saint-Pierre has a population of . , 10.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 6.5%. Migration accounted for 1.5%, while births and deaths accounted for 6.3%.

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...

 (819 or 89.3%) 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 (26 or 2.8%) and Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

 is the third (21 or 2.3%). There are 6 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 51.4% male and 48.6% female. The population was made up of 437 Swiss men (44.4% of the population) and 69 (7.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 405 Swiss women (41.2%) and 73 (7.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 301 or about 32.8% were born in Villaz-Saint-Pierre and lived there in 2000. There were 381 or 41.5% who were born in the same canton, while 109 or 11.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 116 or 12.6% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 29.1% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 58.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12.3%.

, there were 419 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 415 married individuals, 56 widows or widowers and 27 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 357 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 114 households that consist of only one person and 37 households with five or more people. , a total of 348 apartments (87.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 26 apartments (6.5%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (6.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 7.5 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.61%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Politics

In the 2011 federal election
Swiss 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 SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 which received 32.9% 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...

 (24.9%), 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...

 (15.4%) and 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....

 (11.5%).

The SPS improved their position in Villaz-Saint-Pierre rising to first, from second in 2007 (with 24.9%) The SVP moved from third in 2007 (with 21.9%) to second in 2011, the CVP moved from first in 2007 (with 26.1%) to third and the FDP retained about the same popularity (14.5% in 2007). A total of 338 votes were cast in this election, of which 1 or 0.3% was invalid.

Economy

, Villaz-Saint-Pierre had an unemployment rate of 5.1%. , there were 37 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 15 businesses involved in this sector. 248 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 19 businesses in this sector. 84 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 23 businesses in this sector. There were 428 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 39.0% 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 338. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 29, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 238 of which 181 or (76.1%) were in manufacturing and 57 (23.9%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 71. In the tertiary sector; 23 or 32.4% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 17 or 23.9% were in the movement and storage of goods, 1 was in a hotel or restaurant, 22 or 31.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 2 or 2.8% were in education.

, there were 165 workers who commuted into the municipality and 309 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 16.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 61% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 764 or 83.3% were Roman Catholic, while 55 or 6.0% 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 9 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 0.98% of the population). There were 36 (or about 3.93% 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 3 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...

. 28 (or about 3.05% 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 22 individuals (or about 2.40% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Villaz-Saint-Pierre about 297 or (32.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 86 or (9.4%) 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 86 who completed tertiary schooling, 69.8% were Swiss men, 24.4% were 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 71 students attending 4 classes in Villaz-Saint-Pierre. A total of 196 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There were no kindergarten classes in the municipality, but 30 students attended kindergarten in a neighboring municipality. The municipality had 4 primary classes and 71 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 46 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 23 upper Secondary students and 32 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 3 non-university Tertiary students and one specialized Tertiary student who attended classes in another municipality.

, there were 48 students in Villaz-Saint-Pierre who came from another municipality, while 107 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
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