Hüniken 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
Wasseramt
Wasseramt District is one of the ten districts of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Solothurn (canton), Solothurn in Switzerland, situated to the south of the canton. Together with the Bucheggberg (district), Bucheggberg District, it forms th ...
in the
canton of
Solothurn
Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains.
The town is ...
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 ...
.
History
Hüniken is first mentioned around 1263-64 as ''P. de Hunnechoven''.
[
]
Geography
Hüniken has an area, , of . Of this area, or 77.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 15.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 6.9% is settled (buildings or roads).[Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics]
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.0%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 55.4% is used for growing crops and 19.8% is pastures, while 2.0% is used for orchards or vine crops.[
The municipality is located in the Wasseramt district, on a ]ground moraine
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice she ...
. The houses are scattered around the Chapel of St. Michael and stretch toward Etziken
Etziken is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Wasseramt (district), Wasseramt in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Solothurn (canton), Solothurn in Switzerland.
History
Etziken is first mentioned in 1252 as ''Ezz ...
.
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 Fir Tree issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Vert.''
Demographics
Hüniken has a population () of , all Swiss citizens. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 26.5%. It has changed at a rate of 20.6% due to migration and at a rate of 1.5% due to births and deaths.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 14-April-2011
Most of the population () speaks 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 ...
(66 or 98.5%) with the rest speaking English[
, the gender distribution of the population was 46.5% male and 53.5% female. The population was made up of 40 Swiss men (46.5% of the population) and (0.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 46 Swiss women (53.5%) and (0.0%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 37 or about 55.2% were born in Hüniken and lived there in 2000. There were 21 or 31.3% who were born in the same canton, while 8 or 11.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1 or 1.5% were born outside of Switzerland.][
In , from births and deaths, the population of Swiss citizens and the foreign population remained the same. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was a decrease of 3 and the non-Swiss population remained the same. This represents a ]population growth rate
Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 70 million annu ...
of -3.3%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Superweb database - Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008]
accessed 19 June 2010
The age distribution, , in Hüniken is; 4 children or 6.0% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 8 teenagers or 11.9% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 5 people or 7.5% of the population are between 20 and 24 years old. 14 people or 20.9% are between 25 and 44, and 21 people or 31.3% are between 45 and 64.
, there were 26 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 35 married individuals, 3 widows or widowers and 3 individuals who are divorced.[STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 26 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household.[ There were 6 households that consist of only one person and 2 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 26 households that answered this question, 23.1% were households made up of just one person. Of the rest of the households, there are 8 married couples without children, 11 married couples with children There was one single parent with a child or children.][
there were 12 single-family homes (or 52.2% of the total) out of a total of 23 inhabited buildings. There were 2 multi-family buildings (8.7%) and along with 9 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (39.1%). Of the single-family homes 1 was built before 1919, while 1 was built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single-family homes (4) were built between 1971 and 1980.][Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen]
accessed 28 January 2011
there were 28 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 5 rooms of which there were 10. There were no single room apartments and 17 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 26 apartments (92.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 2 apartments (7.1%) were empty.[ , the construction rate of new housing units was 23.3 new units per 1000 residents.][ The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0%.][
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 34.29% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (22.51%), the FDP (20.94%) and the Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice.
Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...
(12.3%). In the federal election, a total of 57 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 73.1%.
Economy
, Hüniken had an unemployment rate of 3.6%. , there were 9 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 3 businesses involved in this sector. 1 person 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 ...
and there was 1 business in this sector. There were no jobs in the municipality 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 ...
.[ There were 44 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 36.4% 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 6. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 5, all of which were in agriculture. There was 1 job in the secondary sector, in manufacturing.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3
accessed 28 January 2011 , there were 29 workers who commuted away from the municipality.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 13.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 45.5% used a private car.[
]
Religion
From the , 46 or 68.7% 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 15 or 22.4% 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 ...
. Of the rest of the population, there were 4 individuals (or about 5.97% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church and 2 (or about 2.99% of the population) who 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 ...
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 ...
.[
]
Education
In Hüniken about 36 or (53.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 9 or (13.4%) 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 9 who completed tertiary schooling, 77.8% were Swiss men, 22.2% were Swiss women.[
, there were 6 students from Hüniken who attended schools outside the municipality.][
]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huniken
Municipalities of the canton of Solothurn