Fresens

Fresens is a former municipality in the district of Boudry in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Bevaix, Saint-Aubin-Sauges, Gorgier, Vaumarcus, Montalchez and Fresens merged into the new municipality of La Grande-Béroche.

History

Fresens is first mentioned in 1265 as ''Hiremanz dit de Fressen''.

Geography

Fresens has an area, , of . Of this area, or 83.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 7.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 9.5% is settled (buildings or roads).Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.8%. Out of the forested land, 5.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 64.6% is used for growing crops and 13.3% is pastures, while 5.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.

The municipality is located in the Boudry district.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Per fess Gules and Argent, a Rose counterchanged.''

Demographics

Fresens has a population () of . , 2.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Superweb database - Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008
accessed 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 10.6%. It has changed at a rate of 2.1% due to migration and at a rate of 7.4% due to births and deaths.
accessed 20-October-2011

Most of the population () speaks French (206 or 94.5%) as their first language, German is the second most common (8 or 3.7%) and Italian is the third (1 or 0.5%).

, the population was 49.8% male and 50.2% female. The population was made up of 105 Swiss men (48.8% of the population) and 2 (0.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 107 Swiss women (49.8%) and 1 (0.5%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Neuchatel Statistics
''République et canton de Neuchâtel - Recensement annuel de la population'' accessed 13 October 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 78 or about 35.8% were born in Fresens and lived there in 2000. There were 54 or 24.8% who were born in the same canton, while 62 or 28.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 15 or 6.9% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 48.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 28.9%.

, there were 85 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 98 married individuals, 24 widows or widowers and 11 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 62 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.8 persons per household. There were 10 households that consist of only one person and 9 households with five or more people. , a total of 60 apartments (83.3% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 6 apartments (8.3%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (8.3%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 4.8 new units per 1000 residents.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1750 from:start till:169 text:"169"
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bar:1860 from:start till:224 text:"224"
bar:1870 from:start till:233 text:"233"
bar:1880 from:start till:234 text:"234"
bar:1888 from:start till:215 text:"215"
bar:1900 from:start till:175 text:"175"
bar:1910 from:start till:137 text:"137"
bar:1920 from:start till:142 text:"142"
bar:1930 from:start till:145 text:"145"
bar:1941 from:start till:120 text:"120"
bar:1950 from:start till:147 text:"147"
bar:1960 from:start till:134 text:"134"
bar:1970 from:start till:128 text:"128"
bar:1980 from:start till:142 text:"142"
bar:1990 from:start till:183 text:"183"
bar:2000 from:start till:218 text:"218"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 32.61% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (18.86%), the FDP (12.77%) and the Green Party (11.98%). In the federal election, a total of 104 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 65.8%.

Economy

, Fresens had an unemployment rate of 5%. , there were 24 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 9 businesses involved in this sector. 78 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 5 businesses in this sector. 60 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 3 businesses in this sector. There were 94 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 37.2% of the workforce.

the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 134. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 18, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 77 of which 26 or (33.8%) were in manufacturing and 51 (66.2%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 39. In the tertiary sector; 2 or 5.1% were in education and 37 or 94.9% were in health care.

, there were 100 workers who commuted into the municipality and 49 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 2.0 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 13.0% of the workforce coming into Fresens are coming from outside Switzerland.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 5.3% used public transportation to get to work, and 46.8% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 8 or 3.7% were Roman Catholic, while 99 or 45.4% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 2 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.92% of the population), and there were 142 individuals (or about 65.14% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 2 individuals (or about 0.92% of the population) who were Jewish, and there was 1 individual who was Islamic. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 25 (or about 11.47% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 9 individuals (or about 4.13% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Fresens about 91 or (41.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 25 or (11.5%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a ''Fachhochschule''). Of the 25 who completed tertiary schooling, 64.0% were Swiss men, 36.0% were Swiss women.

In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory kindergarten, followed by five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. Both the kindergarten and the primary school are combined with Montalchez. During the 2010-11 school year, there was one kindergarten class with a total of 23 students between the municipalities. In the same year, there was one primary class with a total of 16 students.Statistical Department of the Canton of Neuchâtel
Mémento de l'année scolaire 2010/2011 accessed 17 October 2011

, there were 2 students in Fresens who came from another municipality, while 22 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

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{{Authority control

Former municipalities of the canton of Neuchâtel