Finhaut 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 Saint-Maurice in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

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 ...

History

Finhaut is first mentioned in 1293 as ''Finyaux''.

Geography

Finhaut has an area, , of . Of this area, 3.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 26.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and 67.8% is unproductive land. The municipality is located in the Saint-Maurice district, in the upper Trient valley on the

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

border. It consists of the village of Finhaut and the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Giétroz and Le Châtelard. Lac d'Émosson is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

(of the Émosson Dam) partially located in the municipality. The 17th stage of the

2016 Tour de France The 2016 Tour de France was the 103rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The -long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 2 July in Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy, and concluding on 24 July with the Champs-Élysées s ...

ended near the dam.

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 ''Gules, a Castle Argent embattled with three towers windowed Sable middle one roofed in chief two Arrows Or in saltire.''

Demographics

Finhaut has a population () of . , 17.2% 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 6.4%. It has changed at a rate of 12.2% due to migration and at a rate of 0% due to births and deaths.
accessed 21-September-2011 Most of the population () speaks

(308 or 96.9%) as their first language,

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 ...

is the second most common (6 or 1.9%) 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 (2 or 0.6%). , the population was 53.1% male and 46.9% female. The population was made up of 148 Swiss men (40.3% of the population) and 47 (12.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 143 Swiss women (39.0%) and 29 (7.9%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 175 or about 55.0% were born in Finhaut and lived there in 2000. There were 52 or 16.4% who were born in the same canton, while 43 or 13.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 35 or 11.0% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 57.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.2%. , there were 134 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 144 married individuals, 28 widows or widowers and 12 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 130 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 46 households that consist of only one person and 11 households with five or more people. , a total of 129 apartments (34.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 172 apartments (46.5%) were seasonally occupied and 69 apartments (18.6%) 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 2.7 new units per 1000 residents.

Sights

The entire Finhaut area is designated as part of the

Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites The Federal Inventory of Heritage Sites (ISOS) is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. Sites of national importance Types The types are based on t ...

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 55.09% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (15.6%), the SP (13.14%) and the SVP (7.96%). In the federal election, a total of 183 votes were cast, and the

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

was 66.3%. In the 2009 Conseil d'État/Staatsrat election a total of 165 votes were cast, of which 8 or about 4.8% were invalid. The voter participation was 64.5%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 178 votes were cast, of which 12 or about 6.7% were invalid. The voter participation was 65.4%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Finhaut had an unemployment rate of 2%. , there were 7 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 3 businesses involved in this sector. No one was 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 ...

. 106 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 29 businesses in this sector. There were 157 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.1% 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 80. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 2, all of which were in agriculture. There were no jobs in the secondary sector. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 78. In the tertiary sector; 9 or 11.5% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 24 or 30.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 25 or 32.1% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 4 or 5.1% were in education.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3
accessed 28 January 2011 , there were 28 workers who commuted into the municipality and 64 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 14.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 42.7% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 275 or 86.5% 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 14 or 4.4% 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 ...

. 14 (or about 4.40% 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 15 individuals (or about 4.72% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Finhaut about 121 or (38.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

, and 26 or (8.2%) 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 26 who completed tertiary schooling, 50.0% were Swiss men, 23.1% were Swiss women. , there were 30 students in Finhaut who came from another municipality, while 24 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Transportation

The narrow-gauge Martigny–Châtelard line passes through the eastern edge of the municipality and has three stations: , , and .

References

External links

Official website
* {{Authority control Municipalities of Valais