Vernamiège () 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
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 ...
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 ...
. On 1 January 2011, the former municipalities of Vernamiège,
Nax and
Mase
Mason Durell Betha (born August 27, 1975), better known by his stage name Mase (often stylized as Ma$e), is an American rapper. Best known for his work with Sean Combs, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' Bad Boy Records, he signed with the label in 1996 ...
merged in the new municipality of
Mont-Noble
Mont-Noble () is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Hérens (district), Hérens in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Valais in Switzerland. It was created on 1 January 2011 through the merger of the municipalities ...
.
[Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz]
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 19 July 2011
Geography
Vernamiège has an area, , of . Of this area, or 20.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 71.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 4.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 3.8% is unproductive land.
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.3%. Out of the forested land, 65.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 8.7% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops and 10.6% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the village is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 1.5% is unproductive vegetation and 2.3% is too rocky for vegetation.
[
]
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 village 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 Crosier Or issuant from base and an alder-tree Branch Vert fructed Sable in saltire in chief two Mullets of Five of the second.''
Demographics
Vernamiège has a population () of 153.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 08-September-2011
Most of the population () speaks French (132 or 91.7%) 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 (11 or 7.6%) and Dutch is the third (1 or 0.7%).[
, the gender distribution of the population was 47.1% male and 52.9% female. The population was made up of 83 Swiss men (43.9% of the population) and 6 (3.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 96 Swiss women (50.8%) and 4 (2.1%) non-Swiss women.][Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls]
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the village 97 or about 67.4% were born in Vernamiège and lived there in 2000. There were 15 or 10.4% who were born in the same canton, while 24 or 16.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 8 or 5.6% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, there were 60 people who were single and never married in the village. There were 70 married individuals, 10 widows or widowers and 4 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
There were 25 households that consist of only one person and 4 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 68 households that answered this question, 36.8% were households made up of just one person and there were 3 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 21 married couples without children, 14 married couples with children There were 2 single parents with a child or children. There were 3 households that were made up of unrelated people.[
there were 119 single family homes (or 73.0% of the total) out of a total of 163 inhabited buildings. There were 36 multi-family buildings (22.1%), along with 5 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (3.1%) and 3 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (1.8%).][Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen]
accessed 28 January 2011
, a total of 68 apartments (31.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 127 apartments (58.0%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (11.0%) were empty.[
The historical population is given in the following chart:
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id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
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Period = from:0 till:330
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ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:14 start:0
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color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1850 from:start till:185 text:"185"
bar:1860 from:start till:189 text:"189"
bar:1870 from:start till:187 text:"187"
bar:1880 from:start till:196 text:"196"
bar:1888 from:start till:216 text:"216"
bar:1900 from:start till:244 text:"244"
bar:1910 from:start till:254 text:"254"
bar:1920 from:start till:271 text:"271"
bar:1930 from:start till:293 text:"293"
bar:1941 from:start till:314 text:"314"
bar:1950 from:start till:330 text:"330"
bar:1960 from:start till:277 text:"277"
bar:1970 from:start till:234 text:"234"
bar:1980 from:start till:199 text:"199"
bar:1990 from:start till:177 text:"177"
bar:2000 from:start till:144 text:"144"
]
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 48.48% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (23.38%), 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 ...
(11.4%) and the SVP (11.11%). In the federal election, a total of 100 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 63.3%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'État/Staatsrat election a total of 84 votes were cast, of which 7 or about 8.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 51.9%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 99 votes were cast, of which 3 or about 3.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 63.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Economy
, Vernamiège had an unemployment rate of 0%. , there were people employed in the primary economic sector and about businesses involved in this sector. No one was employed in the secondary sector or 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 52 residents of the village who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 38.5% 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 11. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 4, all of which were in agriculture. There were no jobs in the secondary sector. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 7. In the tertiary sector; 1 was in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 1 was in a hotel or restaurant, and 1 was in the information industry.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3
accessed 28 January 2011
, there were 34 workers who commuted away from the village.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, % used public transportation to get to work, and % used a private car.[
]
Religion
From the , 118 or 81.9% 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 12 or 8.3% 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 ...
. 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 6.94% 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 ...
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 3 individuals (or about 2.08% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Vernamiège about 34 or (23.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 20 or (13.9%) 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 20 who completed tertiary schooling, 65.0% were Swiss men, 30.0% were Swiss women.[
, there were 17 students from Vernamiège who attended schools outside the village.][
]
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vernamiege
Former municipalities of Valais