Saxon, Switzerland

Saxon is a municipality, in the district of Martigny, in the canton of Valais, in Switzerland.

History

Saxon is first mentioned in 1153 as ''de Saxone''.

Geography

Saxon has an area, , of . Of this area, 31.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 50.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and 8.1% is unproductive land.

The municipality is located in the Martigny district, along the left bank of the Rhone. It stretches from the Pierre-à-Voir () down to the Rhone. It consists of the villages of Saxon and Gottefrey and scattered hamlets.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Gules a trefoil branch Argent''

Demographics

Saxon has a population () of . , 28.8% 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 29.8%. It has changed at a rate of 33.9% due to migration and at a rate of 1.3% due to births and deaths.
accessed 19-September-2011

Most of the population () speaks French (2,845 or 85.9%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (154 or 4.6%) and Albanian is the third (112 or 3.4%). There are 56 people who speak German, 61 people who speak Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh.

, the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 1,478 Swiss men (34.1% of the population) and 669 (15.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,570 Swiss women (36.2%) and 621 (14.3%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 1,441 or about 43.5% were born in Saxon and lived there in 2000. There were 780 or 23.6% who were born in the same canton, while 332 or 10.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 716 or 21.6% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 23.4% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 60.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.5%.

, there were 1,284 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,602 married individuals, 219 widows or widowers and 207 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 1,359 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 410 households that consist of only one person and 88 households with five or more people. , a total of 1,309 apartments (73.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 320 apartments (17.9%) were seasonally occupied and 155 apartments (8.7%) 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 21.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.97%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1802 from:start till:463 text:"463"
bar:1850 from:start till:952 text:"952"
bar:1860 from:start till:1094 text:"1,094"
bar:1870 from:start till:1474 text:"1,474"
bar:1880 from:start till:1453 text:"1,453"
bar:1888 from:start till:1398 text:"1,398"
bar:1900 from:start till:1636 text:"1,636"
bar:1910 from:start till:1684 text:"1,684"
bar:1920 from:start till:1686 text:"1,686"
bar:1930 from:start till:1813 text:"1,813"
bar:1941 from:start till:2194 text:"2,194"
bar:1950 from:start till:2421 text:"2,421"
bar:1960 from:start till:2305 text:"2,305"
bar:1970 from:start till:2409 text:"2,409"
bar:1980 from:start till:2394 text:"2,394"
bar:1990 from:start till:3011 text:"3,011"
bar:2000 from:start till:3312 text:"3,312"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 24.87% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (23.97%), the CVP (20.95%) and the SP (14.23%). In the federal election, a total of 1,306 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 56.0%.

In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election a total of 1,287 votes were cast, of which 96 or about 7.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 53.7%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 1,281 votes were cast, of which 106 or about 8.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 55.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Saxon had an unemployment rate of 9.7%. , there were 225 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 88 businesses involved in this sector. 229 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 41 businesses in this sector. 734 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 116 businesses in this sector. There were 1,530 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.4% of the workforce.

the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 966. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 137, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 220 of which 72 or (32.7%) were in manufacturing, 4 or (1.8%) were in mining and 143 (65.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 609. In the tertiary sector; 286 or 47.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 16 or 2.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 50 or 8.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 4 or 0.7% were in the information industry, 10 or 1.6% were the insurance or financial industry, 36 or 5.9% were technical professionals or scientists, 23 or 3.8% were in education and 123 or 20.2% were in health care.

, there were 406 workers who commuted into the municipality and 878 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.2 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 9.8% used public transportation to get to work, and 69.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 2,577 or 77.8% were Roman Catholic, while 224 or 6.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 12 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.36% of the population), there were 8 individuals (or about 0.24% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 33 individuals (or about 1.00% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish, and 206 (or about 6.22% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 5 individuals who were Buddhist and 3 individuals who belonged to another church. 165 (or about 4.98% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 93 individuals (or about 2.81% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Saxon about 1,008 or (30.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 219 or (6.6%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a '' Fachhochschule''). Of the 219 who completed tertiary schooling, 53.0% were Swiss men, 32.9% were Swiss women, 9.1% were non-Swiss men and 5.0% were non-Swiss women.

, there were 5 students in Saxon who came from another municipality, while 211 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Saxon is home to the ''Bibliothèque communale et scolaire'' library. The library has () 11,003 books or other media, and loaned out 16,696 items in the same year. It was open a total of 132 days with average of 19 hours per week during that year.Swiss Federal Statistical Office, list of libraries
accessed 14 May 2010

References

External links

Official website

{{Authority control

Municipalities of Valais