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 district 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 Per pale Argent and Gules, two Lions rampant respectant counterchanged.

Demographics

Visp has a population of . 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....

 (23,373 or 87.2%) as their first language, 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 second most common (853 or 3.2%) 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 (658 or 2.5%). There are 398 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...

 and 12 people who speak Romansh.

, the gender distribution of the population was 49.8% male and 50.2% female. The population was made up of 10,909 Swiss men (39.4% of the population) and 2,881 (10.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 11,353 Swiss women (41.0%) and 2,528 (9.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 14,307 or about 53.3% were born in Visp and lived there in 2000. There were 5,434 or 20.3% who were born in the same canton, while 2,212 or 8.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 4,191 or 15.6% were born outside of Switzerland.

, there were 11,574 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 13,177 married individuals, 1,370 widows or widowers and 698 individuals who are divorced.

There were 2,999 households that consist of only one person and 834 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 10,682 households that answered this question, 28.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 135 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,616 married couples without children, 3,826 married couples with children There were 478 single parents with a child or children. There were 193 households that were made up of unrelated people and 435 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 October 1972, Eyholz merged into the municipality of Visp

Visp

Visp is the capital of the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:Visp has an area, , of . Of this area, 17.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 59.7% is forested...

. On 1 January 2007 the municipality of Saas Almagell changed its name to Saas-Almagell, the municipality of Saas Balen changed its name to Saas-Balen and the municipality of Saas Fee changed its name to Saas-Fee.

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 67.33% 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...

 (14.7%), the SP

Social Democratic Party of Switzerland

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

 (10.67%) 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....

 (5.51%). In the federal election, a total of 10,367 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 56.8%.

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 10,034 votes were cast, of which 702 or about 7.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 55.2%, 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 10,281 votes were cast, of which 350 or about 3.4% were invalid. The voter participation was 56.9%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Religion

From the , 22,775 or 84.9% were Roman Catholic, while 1,156 or 4.3% 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 495 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 1.85% of the population), there were 7 individuals (or about 0.03% 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 297 individuals (or about 1.11% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 individuals (or about 0.02% of the population) who were Jewish

Judaism

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

, and 613 (or about 2.29% 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 24 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...

, 3 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 9 individuals who belonged to another church. 433 (or about 1.61% 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 1,136 individuals (or about 4.24% of the population) did not answer the question.

Weather

Visp town has an average of 78.9 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives 599 mm (23.6 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 November during which time Visp receives an average of 70 mm (2.8 in) of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 7.2 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is August, with an average of 7.6, but with only 42 mm (1.7 in) of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is September with an average of 32 mm (1.3 in) of precipitation over 5.3 days.

Education

In Visp about 9,778 or (36.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 1,962 or (7.3%) 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 1,962 who completed tertiary schooling, 65.1% were Swiss men, 18.1% were Swiss women, 9.8% were non-Swiss men and 6.9% were non-Swiss women.