Emmen is a village and
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
in the district of
Hochdorf in the
canton of
Lucerne
Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. The municipality Emmen consists of the village Emmen, the town
Emmenbrücke
Emmen is a village and municipality in the district of Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. The municipality Emmen consists of the village Emmen, the town Emmenbrücke, and several hamlets.
History
Emmen is first mentioned in 840 a ...
, and several hamlets.
History
Emmen is first mentioned in 840 as ''Emau'' in a document of
King Lothair I of Bavaria.
[For centuries the region was ruled by the ]Murbach Abbey
Murbach Abbey (french: Abbaye de Murbach) was a famous Benedictine monastery in Murbach, southern Alsace, in a valley at the foot of the Grand Ballon in the Vosges.
The monastery was founded in 727 by Eberhard, Count of Alsace, and established a ...
in Vosges
The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single ...
. In 1291 the municipality came under Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
rule. After the Battle of Sempach
The Battle of Sempach was fought on 9 July 1386, between Leopold III, Duke of Austria and the Old Swiss Confederacy. The battle was a decisive Swiss victory in which Duke Leopold and numerous Austrian nobles died. The victory helped turn the lo ...
in 1386 the Habsburg's lost Emmen and it became part of the Canton of Lucerne
The canton of Lucerne (german: Kanton Luzern rm, Chantun Lucerna french: Canton de Lucerne it, Canton Lucerna) is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the centre of Switzerland. The population of the canton (as of ) is . , the populati ...
. Emmen also took part in the in the Swiss peasant war of 1653
The Swiss peasant war of 1653 () was a popular revolt in the Old Swiss Confederacy at the time of the Ancien Régime. A devaluation of Bernese money caused a tax revolt that spread from the Entlebuch valley in the Canton of Lucerne to the Emmenta ...
.
Since 1803, Emmen is part of the Hochdorf District and is its most populous municipality.
In 2008, the municipality of Emmen as well as Adligenswil
Adligenswil is a municipality in Lucerne District in Canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. It is east of the city of Lucerne and borders on canton Schwyz.
Geography
Adligenswil is a spread out community on the north side of the valley of the Würzenb ...
, Ebikon
Ebikon is a municipality in the district of Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.
History
Ebikon was first mentioned during the late 9th Century as ''marcha Abinchova''.
Geography
Ebikon has an area of . Of this area, 38.4% is us ...
, Horw
Horw (; Swiss German: ''Horb'') is a municipality in the district of Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.
History
Horw is first mentioned in 1231 as ''Horwe''.
Geography
Horw has an area of . Of this area, 32.6% is used for agri ...
and Kriens
Kriens is a city and a municipality in the district of Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.
The municipality lies at the foot of the mountain Pilatus, and is a western suburb of Lucerne.
History
In the oldest documents of the Bened ...
participated in the «Starke Stadtregion Luzern» project. In it, the merger of individual or several municipalities with the city of Lucerne was examined. In 2011, the merger was proposed by the project management as the most suitable means for the further development of the region around Lucerne. However, the voters of the municipality of Emmen rejected such a proposal in 2012 - as did voters in Adligenswil, Ebikon and Kriens. That meant that Emmen remained a independent municipality. As a result, Thomas Willi who was the president of the municipality at the time and strongly advocated for a merger resigned.
Politics
As every Swiss municipality Emmen has a legislative and executive body, the '' Einwohnerrat'' and the ''Gemeinderat
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
''.
Einwohnerrat (legislative)
The Einwohnerrat has 40 members who are elected every four years.
Gemeinderat (executive)
The five-member Gemeinderat is the executive body. Each of them heads a directorate. In the legislative period 2020-2024, it consists of:
* Ramona Gut-Rogger FDP, '' Gemeindepräsidentin''; Directorate of Security and Sport
* Patrick Schnellmann Die Mitte, Directorate of Finance and Human Resources
* Thomas Lehmann FDP, Directorate of Social Affairs and Society
* Josef Schmidli Die Mitte, Directorate for Construction and Environment
* Brahim Aakti SP, Directorate of School and Culture
Elections
Cantonal Council elections
In the 2019 Cantonal Council elections in the Canton of Lucerne, the voter percentages in Emmen were: FDP 23.5 %, SVP 22.0 %, CVP 19.6 %, SP 16.7 %, GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
13.4 %, glp 5.1 %.
Swiss federal elections
In the 2019 Swiss federal elections, the voter percentages in Emmen were: SVP 30.5%, SP 18.4%, CVP 16.4%, FDP 14.9%, GPS 12.4%, glp 6.0%, EVP 1.0%.
Geography
Emmen has an area of . Of this area, 46.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 18.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 33.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (1.9%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).[ , 18.19% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 44.69% is used for farming or pastures, while 1.92% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 14.55% is covered with buildings, 5.7% is industrial, 1.62% is classed as special developments, 1.97% is parks or greenbelts and 9.49% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 0.25% is unproductive standing water (ponds or lakes), and the other 1.62% is unproductive flowing water (rivers).][
The municipality is part of the metropolitan area of ]Lucerne
Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
. It is located at the confluence
In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...
of the Kleine Emme
The Kleine Emme is a river of the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland, a left tributary of the Reuss extending for 58 km, draining a basin of 477 km². It is not to be confused with the Emme of the canton of Berne.
The Kleine Emme rises as th ...
into the Reuss Reuss may refer to:
*Reuss (surname)
*Reuss (river) in Switzerland
*Reuss (state) or Reuß, several former states or countries in present-day Germany, and the Republic of Reuss
*Reuss Elder Line and Reuss Younger Line (House of Reuss), members incl ...
.
The naturalization law
The municipality of Emmen hit international headlines in 2001 when it announced new naturalization law. While there are some fixed requirements for obtaining Swiss citizenship
Swiss citizenship is the status of being a citizen of Switzerland and it can be obtained by birth or naturalisation.
The Swiss Citizenship Law is based on the following principles:
* Triple citizenship level (Swiss Confederation, canton, and ...
by naturalization
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
set at the federal level, such as the requirement to live and work for 12 years and speak the local language, Swiss cantons and communities are free to introduce more stringent requirements. Until 2001, naturalization was run by a popularly elected committee
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
. But Emmen decided to have the citizens themselves run the nationalization process, requiring that potential citizens pass a series of tests and public interviews and subjecting citizenship applications to the public vote.
This process prevented many Yugoslavs-Swiss people, the largest ethnic group among citizenship candidates (Emmen has one of the largest of ex-Yugoslav community in Switzerland), from obtaining citizenship. Human right
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
s campaigners said that the public interviews and voting were degrading. In July 2003, the practice was ruled discriminatory
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
and unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
by the Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
. Emmen has since returned to the previous system of naturalization committees.
Population by nationality
Emmen has a population () of 27,205, of which 30.7% are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 2.7%. Most of the population () speaks German (81.6%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common (5.0%) and Italian being third (3.9%).
Industry
The main industries are steel production, milk processing and arms manufacture. The biggest employers in these areas are Schmolz + Bickenbach
Schmolz + Bickenbach AG (renamed since September 2020 as Swiss Steel Holding AG and Swiss Steel Group) is a listed steel group based in Lucerne / Switzerland. The group employs more than 10'000 people and generated revenues of EUR 3.3 billion i ...
, Emmi AG
Emmi AG () is a Swiss milk processor and dairy products company headquartered in Lucerne. The company employs a total of around 8,900 people in Europe (including Switzerland), North America (USA and Mexico), South America (Brazil and Chile) and ...
and Ruag
RUAG Holding (originally Rüstungs Unternehmen Aktiengesellschaft; Joint Stock Defence Company) is a Swiss company specialising in aerospace engineering and the defence industry. Its headquarters are located in Bern, while it also has numerous pr ...
respectively. There is the so-called ´golden triangle´ of the sewage plant, the air force base and the waste incinerating plant. Because of the Emmen Air Force Base and the Emmen Anti Aircraft Unit, many of the inhabitants are directly or indirectly employed by the Air Force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...
.
Emmen has an unemployment rate of 3.62%. , there were 257 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 58 businesses involved in this sector. 5260 people are employed in the secondary sector
In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction. ...
and there are 213 businesses in this sector. 8139 people are employed in the tertiary sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...
, with 693 businesses in this sector.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 18-Aug-2009 51.6% of the population of the municipality were employed in some capacity. At the same time, females made up 42.8% of the workforce.[
]
Demographics
In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 33.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (20.8%), the FDP (20.1%) and the SPS
SPS may refer to:
Law and government
* Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the WTO
* NATO Science for Peace and Security
* Single Payment Scheme, an EU agricultural subsidy
* The Standard Procurement System, fo ...
(14.2%).
The age distribution in Emmen is; 5,990 people or 21.7% of the population is 0–19 years old. 7,735 people or 28.1% are 20–39 years old, and 9,489 people or 34.4% are 40–64 years old. The senior population distribution is 3,194 people or 11.6% are 65–79 years old, 1,014 or 3.7% are 80–89 years old and 146 people or 0.5% of the population are 90+ years old.[LUSTAT Lucerne Cantonal Statistics]
accessed 12 August 2009
The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Emmen about 61.4% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a ''Fachhochschule
A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts ...
'').
there are 11,165 households, of which 3,720 households (or about 33.3%) contain only a single individual. 801 or about 7.2% are large households, with at least five members.[ there were 2,737 inhabited buildings in the municipality, of which 2,339 were built only as housing, and 398 were ]mixed use
Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...
buildings. There were 1,131 single family homes, 217 double family homes, and 991 multi-family homes in the municipality. Most homes were either two (868) or three (791) story structures. There were only 133 single story buildings and 547 four or more story buildings.[
the religious membership of Emmen was; 17,253 (64.2%) were Roman Catholic, and 3,416 (12.7%) were Protestant, with an additional 1,327 (4.94%) that were of some other Christian faith. There are 9 individuals (0.03% of the population) who are Jewish. There are 1,848 individuals (6.87% of the population) who are Muslim. Of the rest; there were 228 (0.85%) individuals who belong to another religion, 1,753 (6.52%) who do not belong to any organized religion, 1,051 (3.91%) who did not answer the question.][
The historical population is given in the following table:]
Transportation
The municipality is thoroughly served by Lucerne's urban transit system VBL, which is part of the fare network passepartout. Two railway lines (S1, RE, S9, S99) lead through the municipality and serves four railway stations: , , , and . All stops in the municipality are situated within passepartout's innermost zone No. 10, the same as Lucerne.
The military airbase Emmen Air Base
Militärflugplatz Emmen (Emmen Military Air Base) is a military airfield of the Swiss Air Force north of Emmen, Switzerland, located northwest of Lucerne.
History
After several previous projects in the 1920s by the federal government and the ...
is part of the municipality.
Sport
FC Emmenbrücke
FC Emmenbrücke are a Swiss football team with its home in the city of Emmen, currently playing in the Swiss 1. Liga (football), the fourth highest tier in the Swiss football pyramid. The club was formed in 1921. Their best result in the yo ...
is the village's football club.
Notable people
* Xaver Kurmann
Xaver Kurmann (born 29 August 1948) is a retired Swiss amateur cyclist. Had his best results in the individual pursuit event on track, winning two world titles and two Olympic medals between 1968 and 1972, but he also won a bronze medal in the 1 ...
(born 1948) a retired Swiss amateur cyclist
* Raphael Koch (born 1990) a footballer, currently plays as a defender for FC Solothurn
FC Solothurn is a Swiss football club based in Solothurn. The club has played in Nationalliga B (2nd level), and currently plays at 1. Liga (Group 2) (3rd level).
History
From season 1925–26 to 1930–31, when a new system got introduced, ...
* Mario Bühler (born 1992) a football defender playing for FC Vaduz
FC may refer to:
Businesses, organisations, and schools
* Fergusson College, a science and arts college in Pune, India
* Finncomm Airlines (IATA code)
* FranklinCovey company, NYSE stock symbol FC
* Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force in Pakis ...
* Kurt Koch
, alt =
, caption = Koch pictured in December 2016.
, church = Roman Catholic Church
, archdiocese =
, province =
, metropolis =
, diocese =
, see =
, appointed = 1 July 2010
, ended =
, predecessor = Walter Kasper
, successor =
, ...
(born 1950) cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
and President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, previously named the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), is a dicastery whose origins are associated with the Second Vatican Council which met intermittently from 1962 to 1965.
Po ...
. He was the bishop of Basel from 1996 until 2010.
*Loredana Loredana is a feminine given name, claimed to be invented by French author Lucile Aurore Dupin (George Sand) in her novel ''Mattea'' (1833), and later used by Luciano Zuccoli in ''L'amore di Loredana'' (1908).
It may have been inspired by the rea ...
(born 1995) Rapperin
References
External links
Official Website
BBC report on the Emmen citizenship tests
*
*
Cities in Switzerland
Municipalities of the canton of Lucerne
{{Authority control