La Brévine

La Brévine (, ) is a municipality in the Neuchâtel Canton in Switzerland. It is the largest village of the homonymous valley (''Vallée de la Brévine''). The area is renowned for its microclimate and is often much colder than nearby locations.

History

In the 17th century, the name "La Brévine" was used solely to refer to the village. It was not until the 18th century that the name came to represent the entire municipality. The hamlet of Bémont was first mentioned in 1266 as ''Bemont'', and Les Taillères was first mentioned in 1304 as ''Chaul de Estaleres''. In the mid 1600s a material source was discovered there, rich in iron carbonate. In the middle of the 19th century, baths were built there, thanks to a subsidy by King Frédéric-Guillaume IV of Prussia who was then still Prince of Neuchâtel. Today, the baths are no longer functioning.

Geography

La Brévine has an area, , of . Of this area, or 53.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 42.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 2.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.0% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.0% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

Of the built-up area, housing and buildings made up 1.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.9%. Out of the forested land, 37.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.3% is used for growing crops and 32.9% is pastures and 20.4% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes.

The municipality was located in the district of Le Locle, until the district level was eliminated on 1 January 2018. It is near the French border. It consists of the village of La Brévine (elevation ) and the hamlets of Le Brouillet, Bémont, Les Taillères and La Châtagne as well as scattered farm houses.

The largest lake in the valley, the Lac des Taillères, is located from the village. The highest point of the valley, the Crêt du Cervelet, is located from the village.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Azure bordered Or, a Fountain Argent.''

Demographics

La Brévine has a population () of . , 3.2% 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 -0.1%. It has changed at a rate of -0.4% due to migration and at a rate of 1% due to births and deaths.
accessed 21-October-2011

Most of the population () speaks French (616 or 95.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common language (22 or 3.4%) and Portuguese is the third (4 or 0.6%). There is 1 person who speaks Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh.

, the population was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The population was made up of 308 Swiss men (47.0% of the population) and 12 (1.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 324 Swiss women (49.5%) and 11 (1.7%) 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, 326 or about 50.4% were born in La Brévine and lived there in 2000. There were 169 or 26.1% who were born in the same canton, while 85 or 13.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 28 or 4.3% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 27.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 56.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.4%.

, there were 252 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 332 married individuals, 36 widows or widowers and 27 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 249 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 66 households that consist of only one person and 30 households with five or more people. , a total of 244 apartments (72.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 65 apartments (19.3%) were seasonally occupied and 28 apartments (8.3%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Colors=
id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9)
id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
ImageSize = width:1080 height:210
PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:1800
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:400 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:80 start:0
PlotData=
color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1704 from:start till:682 text:"682"
bar:1750 from:start till:1220 text:"1,220"
bar:1850 from:start till:1339 text:"1,339"
bar:1860 from:start till:1547 text:"1,547"
bar:1870 from:start till:1557 text:"1,557"
bar:1880 from:start till:1703 text:"1,703"
bar:1888 from:start till:1604 text:"1,604"
bar:1900 from:start till:1494 text:"1,494"
bar:1910 from:start till:1276 text:"1,276"
bar:1920 from:start till:1111 text:"1,111"
bar:1930 from:start till:985 text:"985"
bar:1941 from:start till:1010 text:"1,010"
bar:1950 from:start till:1008 text:"1,008"
bar:1960 from:start till:876 text:"876"
bar:1970 from:start till:783 text:"783"
bar:1980 from:start till:654 text:"654"
bar:1990 from:start till:626 text:"626"
bar:2000 from:start till:647 text:"647"

Heritage sites of national significance

The Double House is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 38.69% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the LPS Party (21.44%), the FDP (14.57%) and the SP (10.17%). In the federal election, a total of 298 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 54.3%.

Economy

, La Brévine had an unemployment rate of 1.1%. , there were 157 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 61 businesses involved in this sector. Sixty people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 13 businesses in this sector. One hundred and five people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 35 businesses in this sector. There were 315 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which women made up 41.6% of the workforce.

, the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 258. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 121, of which 118 were in agriculture and 4 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 57 of which 28 or (49.1%) were in manufacturing and 28 (49.1%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 80. In the tertiary sector; 28 or 35.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 16 or 20.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 17 or 21.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 3.8% were technical professionals or scientists, 8 or 10.0% were in education.

, there were 68 workers who commuted into the municipality and109 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.6 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 20.6% of the workforce coming into La Brévine are coming from outside Switzerland.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 3.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 42.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 107 or 16.5% were Roman Catholic, while 447 or 69.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 13 individuals (or about 2.01% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. 47 (or about 7.26% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 39 individuals (or about 6.03% of the population) did not answer the question.

Climate

La Brévine is known as the «Siberia of Switzerland» on account of its climatic extremes, being the inhabited locality where the lowest temperature was ever measured. In fact, the valley's microclimate is often much colder than other nearby locations. On 12 January 1987, the local weather station recorded a temperature of , the coldest ever officially recorded by MeteoSwiss in Switzerland. In comparison, the hottest temperature ever measured in Switzerland was in Grono. La Brévine is often popularized as the coldest location in the country, although many towns in the high Alps, for instance Samedan, experience a much colder climate in general. Officially, the coldest place in Switzerland is the Jungfraujoch. Juf, as the highest village in the country, is probably its (or one of its) coldest inhabited place(s). Additionally, when considering unofficial but notable measurements, lower temperatures were recorded in Switzerland, notably at Glattalp.

La Brévine has a borderline subarctic climate ( Dfc) with mild, rainy summers and cold, snowy winters. Between 1991 and 2020, La Brévine had an average of 143.8 days of rain or snow per year and on average received of precipitation. The wettest month was July during which time La Brévine received an average of of rain or snow. During this month there was precipitation for an average of 11.9 days. The month with the most days of precipitation was May, with an average of 14.2, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year was February with an average of of precipitation over 11.2 days.

Education

In La Brévine about 191 or (29.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 43 or (6.6%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a ''Fachhochschule''). Of the 43 who completed tertiary schooling, 62.8% were Swiss men, 32.6% 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. During the 2010-11 school year, there was one kindergarten class with a total of 11 students in La Brévine. In the same year, there were 2 primary classes with a total of 40 students.Statistical Department of the Canton of Neuchâtel
Mémento de l'année scolaire 2010/2011 accessed 17 October 2011

, there were 18 students in La Brévine who came from another municipality, while 30 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brevine, La
Municipalities of the canton of Neuchâtel
Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Neuchâtel