Fontaines is a former
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
Val-de-Ruz in the
canton of
Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...
in
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 ...
.
The municipalities of
Boudevilliers
Boudevilliers is a former municipality in the district of Val-de-Ruz in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The municipalities of Boudevilliers, Cernier, Chézard-Saint-Martin, Coffrane, Dombresson, Engollon, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Fo ...
,
Cernier,
Chézard-Saint-Martin,
Coffrane,
Dombresson,
Engollon,
Fenin-Vilars-Saules,
Fontainemelon, Fontaines,
Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane,
Les Hauts-Geneveys,
Montmollin,
Le Pâquier,
Savagnier and
Villiers merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of
Val-de-Ruz.
[Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz]
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 2 January 2013
History
Fontaines is first mentioned in 1228 as ''Fontanes''.
[
]
Geography
Fontaines had an area, , of . Of this area, or 63.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 28.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010[
The former municipality is located in the Val-de-Ruz district. It consists of the village of Fontaines and two ]exclaves
An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...
in the mountains in the Pass La Vue-des-Alpes, which has an elevation of .
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 ''Azure, a Fountain Argent.''
Demographics
Fontaines had a population () of 1,132.[Swiss Federal Statistics Office – STAT-TAB](_blank)
''Ständige und Nichtständige Wohnbevölkerung nach Region, Geschlecht, Nationalität und Alter'' accessed 3 October 2012 , 12.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals.
accessed 19 June 2010
accessed 27-October-2011German
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 (33 or 3.6%) 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 (22 or 2.4%).[
, the population was 49.7% male and 50.3% female. The population was made up of 472 Swiss men (42.7% of the population) and 77 (7.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 497 Swiss women (45.0%) and 59 (5.3%) non-Swiss women.][Canton of Neuchatel Statistics](_blank)
''République et canton de Neuchâtel - Recensement annuel de la population'' accessed 13 October 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 198 or about 21.7% were born in Fontaines and lived there in 2000. There were 379 or 41.6% who were born in the same canton, while 167 or 18.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 149 or 16.3% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 29.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 9.8%.][
, there were 391 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 457 married individuals, 33 widows or widowers and 31 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 331 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.7 persons per household.[ There were 76 households that consist of only one person and 29 households with five or more people. , a total of 317 apartments (84.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 47 apartments (12.5%) were seasonally occupied and 13 apartments (3.4%) 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 6.3 new units per 1000 residents.[ The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.22%.][
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 28.79% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (22.26%), the FDP (16.5%) and the LPS Party (12.51%). In the federal election, a total of 367 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 54.0%.
Economy
, Fontaines had an unemployment rate of 3.3%. , there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 14 businesses involved in this sector. 366 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 11 businesses in this sector. 84 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 30 businesses in this sector.[ There were 467 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.5% 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 447. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 24, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 352 of which 296 or (84.1%) were in manufacturing and 56 (15.9%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 71. In the tertiary sector; 16 or 22.5% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 5.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 32 or 45.1% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 2.8% were in the information industry, 2 or 2.8% were the insurance or financial industry, 2 or 2.8% were technical professionals or scientists, 3 or 4.2% were in education.
, there were 269 workers who commuted into the municipality and 359 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 13.0% of the workforce coming into Fontaines are coming from outside Switzerland.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 12.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 68.3% used a private car.[
]
Religion
From the , 216 or 23.7% 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 413 or 45.3% 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 was 1 member of an Orthodox church, there were 6 individuals (or about 0.66% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 49 individuals (or about 5.37% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 7 (or about 0.77% 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 ...
and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 208 (or about 22.81% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or 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 30 individuals (or about 3.29% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Fontaines about 319 or (35.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 128 or (14.0%) 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 128 who completed tertiary schooling, 57.0% were Swiss men, 28.1% were Swiss women, 9.4% were non-Swiss men and 5.5% were non-Swiss women.[
In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory ]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 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 were 2 kindergarten classes with a total of 29 students in Fontaines. In the same year, there were 5 primary classes with a total of 90 students.Statistical Department of the Canton of Neuchâtel
Mémento de l'année scolaire 2010/2011 accessed 17 October 2011
, there were 12 students in Fontaines who came from another municipality, while 151 residents attended schools outside the municipality.[
]
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Former municipalities of the canton of Neuchâtel