Saint-Martin () 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 Hérens in the canton of

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

Saint-Martin is first mentioned in 1224 as ''Sanctum Martinum''.

Geography

Saint-Martin has an area, , of . Of this area, 33.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 42.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and 21.8% is unproductive land. The municipality is located in the Hérens district. It consists of the villages of Saint-Martin, Suen, Trogne, Eison, Liez, Praz-Jean and La Luette as well as a pair of

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 ...

including Ossona.

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 on a Mount Vert St. Martin robed Or on a Horse Argent cutting his Coat Gules to share with a Beggar Proper.''

Demographics

Saint-Martin has a population () of . , 3.2% 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 (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -3.9%. It has changed at a rate of 2.4% due to migration and at a rate of -2.4% due to births and deaths.
accessed 08-September-2011 Most of the population () speaks French (887 or 98.9%) 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 (5 or 0.6%) and Portuguese is the third (2 or 0.2%). There is 1 person who speaks

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 ...

. , the gender distribution of the population was 48.0% male and 52.0% female. The population was made up of 432 Swiss men (46.1% of the population) and 18 (1.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 473 Swiss women (50.5%) and 14 (1.5%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the municipality 690 or about 76.9% were born in Saint-Martin and lived there in 2000. There were 84 or 9.4% who were born in the same canton, while 63 or 7.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 29 or 3.2% were born outside of Switzerland. The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 54.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 23.2%. , there were 338 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 488 married individuals, 56 widows or widowers and 15 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 342 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 83 households that consist of only one person and 31 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 349 households that answered this question, 23.8% were households made up of just one person and there were 7 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 111 married couples without children, 124 married couples with children There were 12 single parents with a child or children. There were 5 households that were made up of unrelated people and 7 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing. there were 225 single family homes (or 60.5% of the total) out of a total of 372 inhabited buildings. There were 114 multi-family buildings (30.6%), along with 18 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (4.8%) and 15 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (4.0%).Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , a total of 337 apartments (59.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 185 apartments (32.8%) were seasonally occupied and 42 apartments (7.4%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 8.28%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:1200 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:1850 from:start till:732 text:"732" bar:1860 from:start till:737 text:"737" bar:1870 from:start till:764 text:"764" bar:1880 from:start till:876 text:"876" bar:1888 from:start till:823 text:"823" bar:1900 from:start till:863 text:"863" bar:1910 from:start till:877 text:"877" bar:1920 from:start till:953 text:"953" bar:1930 from:start till:1070 text:"1,070" bar:1941 from:start till:1128 text:"1,128" bar:1950 from:start till:1141 text:"1,141" bar:1960 from:start till:1155 text:"1,155" bar:1970 from:start till:1120 text:"1,120" bar:1980 from:start till:1023 text:"1,023" bar:1990 from:start till:914 text:"914" bar:2000 from:start till:897 text:"897"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 60.42% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (15.46%), the FDP (11.8%) and the SP (9.82%). In the federal election, a total of 599 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 77.8%.

Economy

, Saint-Martin had an unemployment rate of 2.5%. , there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 19 businesses involved in this sector. 86 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 19 businesses in this sector. 80 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 27 businesses in this sector. There were 397 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.8% 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 16, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 80 of which 64 or (80.0%) were in manufacturing and 16 (20.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 59. In the tertiary sector; 11 or 18.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 17 or 28.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 10 or 16.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 3.4% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 5.1% were technical professionals or scientists, 5 or 8.5% 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 30 workers who commuted into the municipality and 282 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 9.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 14.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 70.3% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 827 or 92.2% 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 20 or 2.2% 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 5 individuals (or about 0.56% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, and 10 (or about 1.11% 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 36 individuals (or about 4.01% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Saint-Martin about 296 or (33.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 56 or (6.2%) 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 56 who completed tertiary schooling, 66.1% were Swiss men, 30.4% were Swiss women. , there were 2 students in Saint-Martin who came from another municipality, while 62 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:S Martin, Valais Municipalities of Valais