Cottens (; , locally ) is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the district of Sarine in the canton of

Fribourg or is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Canton of Fribourg, Fribourg and district of Sarine (district), La Sarine. Located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss Plateau, it is a major economic, adminis ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. Its

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

name of ''Cottingen'' has now largely fallen out of use.

History

Cottens is first mentioned in 1138 as ''Cotens''.

Geography

Cottens has an area, , of . Of this area, or 69.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 17.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 12.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.6% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data . Retrieved 25 March 2010 Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 46.1% is used for growing crops and 22.5% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Sarine district, on the road and rail lines between Romont and

Coat of arms

The

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 an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...

of the municipal

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

is ''Per fess Argent and sable overall a Key Or.''

Demographics

Cottens has a population () of . , 13.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Superweb database – Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008
. Retrieved 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 37.1%. Migration accounted for 26.9%, while births and deaths accounted for 9.5%.
. Retrieved 1 December 2011 Most of the population () speaks French (896 or 93.0%) as their first language,

is the second most common (42 or 4.4%) and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

is the third (7 or 0.7%). , the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was made up of 548 Swiss men (42.9% of the population) and 86 (6.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 560 Swiss women (43.9%) and 83 (6.5%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Fribourg Statistics
. Retrieved 3 November 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 341 or about 35.4% were born in Cottens and lived there in 2000. There were 420 or 43.6% who were born in the same canton, while 100 or 10.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 79 or 8.2% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 59.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.2%. , there were 373 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 484 married individuals, 72 widows or widowers and 34 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 – 2000
. Retrieved 2 February 2011 , there were 335 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.7 persons per household. There were 74 households that consist of only one person and 33 households with five or more people. , a total of 328 apartments (91.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 13 apartments (3.6%) were seasonally occupied and 17 apartments (4.7%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB – Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 – Gebäude und Wohnungen
. Retrieved 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 7.1 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.66%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:1020 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:970 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:200 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:40 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1811 from:start till:162 text:"162" bar:1850 from:start till:268 text:"268" bar:1860 from:start till:334 text:"334" bar:1870 from:start till:367 text:"367" bar:1880 from:start till:377 text:"377" bar:1888 from:start till:397 text:"397" bar:1900 from:start till:403 text:"403" bar:1910 from:start till:484 text:"484" bar:1920 from:start till:463 text:"463" bar:1930 from:start till:417 text:"417" bar:1941 from:start till:552 text:"552" bar:1950 from:start till:517 text:"517" bar:1960 from:start till:478 text:"478" bar:1970 from:start till:465 text:"465" bar:1980 from:start till:629 text:"629" bar:1990 from:start till:763 text:"763" bar:2000 from:start till:963 text:"963"

Heritage sites of national significance

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

Twin Town

Cottens is twinned with the town of

Combronde Combronde (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Puy-de-Dôme Departments of France, department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central France. See also *Communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department References

Communes of Puy-de-Dôme ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SPS which received 27.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (20.2%), the CVP (19.0%) and the FDP (12.3%).Canton of Fribourg National Council Election of 23 October 2011 Statistics
. Retrieved 3 November 2011 The SPS improved their position in Cottens rising to first, from second in 2007 (with 27.0%) The SVP moved from third in 2007 (with 18.9%) to second in 2011, the CVP moved from first in 2007 (with 27.3%) to third and the FDP retained about the same popularity (14.5% in 2007). A total of 372 votes were cast in this election, of which 15 or 4.0% were invalid.

Economy

, Cottens had an unemployment rate of 3.9%. , there were 37 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 13 businesses involved in this sector. 16 people were 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 constructi ...

and there were 7 businesses in this sector. 154 people were 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 ...

, with 17 businesses in this sector. There were 469 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.2% of the workforce. the total number of

full-time equivalent Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit of measurement that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often use ...

jobs was 155. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 29, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 15 of which 5 or (33.3%) were in manufacturing and 10 (66.7%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 111. In the tertiary sector; 14 or 12.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 2 or 1.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 3 or 2.7% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 2.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 8 or 7.2% were in education and 76 or 68.5% were in health care. , there were 115 workers who commuted into the municipality and 361 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 3.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Statweb
. Retrieved 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 10.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 73.1% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 842 or 87.4% were

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, while 47 or 4.9% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.31% of the population), and there were 6 individuals (or about 0.62% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 11 (or about 1.14% of the population) who were

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. There were 2 individuals who were

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

. 29 (or about 3.01% of the population) belonged to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 26 individuals (or about 2.70% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Cottens about 295 or (30.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 116 or (12.0%) have completed additional higher education (either

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

or a ''

Fachhochschule A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...

''). Of the 116 who completed tertiary schooling, 59.5% were Swiss men, 25.0% were Swiss women, 6.9% were non-Swiss men and 8.6% were non-Swiss women. The Canton of Fribourg school system provides one year of non-obligatory

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend a three or four year optional upper Secondary school. The upper Secondary school is divided into gymnasium (university preparatory) and vocational programs. After they finish the upper Secondary program, students may choose to attend a Tertiary school or continue their

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...

.Chart of the education system in Canton Fribourg
During the 2010–11 school year, there were a total of 192 students attending 10 classes in Cottens. A total of 296 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There were 3 kindergarten classes with a total of 50 students in the municipality. The municipality had 7 primary classes and 142 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 38 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 27 upper Secondary students and 26 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 3 non-university Tertiary students and 11 specialized Tertiary students who attended classes in another municipality. , there were 80 students in Cottens who came from another municipality, while 74 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Transportation

The municipality has a railway station, , on the Lausanne–Bern line. It has regular service to and .

References

External links

Official website
* {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Fribourg Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Fribourg