Arconciel
Encyclopedia
Arconciel is a municipality
Municipalities of Switzerland
Communes , also known as municipalities, are the smallest government division in Switzerland, numbering 2,596 . While many have a population of a few hundred citizens, the largest cities such as Zürich or Geneva also have the legal status of municipalities...

 in the district of Sarine
Sarine (district)
Sarine District is one of the seven districts of the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. It is largely French-speaking, with a German-speaking minority. Its territory is drained by the Sarine river , and by its tributary, the Glâne...

 in the canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...

 of Fribourg in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

History

Arconciel is first mentioned in 1082 as castrum Arconciacum. The municipality was formerly known by its German name Ergenzach, however, that name is no longer used.

Geography

Arconciel has an area, , of 6.2 square kilometre. Of this area, 3.53 square kilometre or 57.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.88 square kilometre or 30.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.52 square kilometre or 8.4% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.17 square kilometre or 2.8% is either rivers or lakes and 0.01 km² (2.5 acre) or 0.2% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.1% of the area Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 38.6% is used for growing crops and 18.2% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The municipality is located in the Sarine district.

Coat of arms

The blazon
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 the appropriate image...

 of the municipal coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 is Azure a Tower embattled Argent

Demographics

Arconciel has a population of . , 9.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 16.9%. Migration accounted for 8.5%, while births and deaths accounted for 7.8%.

Most of the population speaks French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 (597 or 91.0%) as their first language, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 is the second most common (41 or 6.3%) and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 is the third (4 or 0.6%). There are 2 people who speak Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

.

, the population was 52.2% male and 47.8% female. The population was made up of 347 Swiss men (46.6% of the population) and 42 (5.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 329 Swiss women (44.2%) and 27 (3.6%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 222 or about 33.8% were born in Arconciel and lived there in 2000. There were 282 or 43.0% who were born in the same canton, while 82 or 12.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 51 or 7.8% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 31.4% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 58.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 9.8%.

, there were 290 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 327 married individuals, 21 widows or widowers and 18 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 227 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.9 persons per household. There were 39 households that consist of only one person and 33 households with five or more people. , a total of 222 apartments (91.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 17 apartments (7.0%) were seasonally occupied and 4 apartments (1.6%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 1.3 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.68%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Heritage sites of national significance

The Farm House at La Souche 1, the mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....

 shelter at La Souche and the medieval village at Vers-le-Château are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance
Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance
The Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance is a register of some 8,300 items of cultural property in Switzerland...

.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election
Swiss federal election, 2011
Federal elections were held in Switzerland on 23 October 2011.All of the Federal Assembly were to be elected: all 200 seats in the National Council and all 46 seats in the Council of States....

 the most popular party was the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 which received 35.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP
Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland
The Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland is a Christian democratic political party in Switzerland. It is the fourth-largest party in the National Council, with 31 seats, and the largest in the Council of States, with 15 seats. It has one seat, that of Doris Leuthard, on the Swiss...

 (18.2%), the SVP
Swiss People's Party
The Swiss People's Party , also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre , is a conservative political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Toni Brunner, but spearheaded by Christoph Blocher, the party is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 58 members of the National Council and 6 of...

 (16.8%) and the FDP
FDP.The Liberals
FDP.The Liberals is a classical liberal political party in Switzerland. It is the joint-largest party in the Federal Council, third-largest party in the National Council, and second-largest in the Council of States....

 (9.8%).

The SPS received about the same percentage of the vote as they did in the 2007 Federal election
Swiss federal election, 2007
Elections to the Swiss Federal Assembly, the federal parliament of Switzerland, were held on Sunday, 21 October 2007. In a few cantons, a second round of the elections to the Council of States was held on 11 November, 18 November, and 25 November 2007...

 (31.7% in 2007 vs 35.7% in 2011). The CVP lost popularity (24.9% in 2007), the SVP retained about the same popularity (14.8% in 2007) and the FDP moved from below fourth place in 2007 to fourth. A total of 254 votes were cast in this election, of which 3 or 1.2% were invalid.

Economy

, Arconciel had an unemployment rate of 3.4%. , there were 20 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 9 businesses involved in this sector. 9 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 2 businesses in this sector. 31 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 9 businesses in this sector. There were 322 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.7% of the workforce.

the total number of full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent , is a unit to measure employed persons or students in a way that makes them comparable although they may work or study a different number of hours per week. FTE is often used to measure a worker's involvement in a project, or to track cost reductions in an organization...

 jobs was 45. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 15, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 8, all of which were in manufacturing. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 22. In the tertiary sector; 4 or 18.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 4 or 18.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 6 or 27.3% were in education.

, there were 16 workers who commuted into the municipality and 264 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 16.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 7.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 78.9% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 540 or 82.3% were Roman Catholic, while 47 or 7.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
Swiss Reformed Church
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 4 members of an Orthodox church
Orthodox Christianity
The term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* the Eastern Orthodox Church and its various geographical subdivisions...

 (or about 0.61% of the population), and there were 7 individuals (or about 1.07% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and there was 1 individual who was Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic. 42 (or about 6.40% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

 or atheist
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

, and 17 individuals (or about 2.59% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Arconciel about 206 or (31.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 102 or (15.5%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule
Fachhochschule
A Fachhochschule or University of Applied Sciences is a German type of tertiary education institution, sometimes specialized in certain topical areas . Fachhochschulen were founded in Germany and later adopted by Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Greece...

). Of the 102 who completed tertiary schooling, 65.7% were Swiss men, 25.5% were Swiss women, 5.9% were non-Swiss men.

The Canton of Fribourg school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend a three or four year optional upper Secondary school. The upper Secondary school is divided into gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 (university preparatory) and vocational programs. After they finish the upper Secondary program, students may choose to attend a Tertiary school or continue their apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

.

During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 88 students attending 5 classes in Arconciel. A total of 162 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 22 students in the municipality. The municipality had 4 primary classes and 66 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 26 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 25 upper Secondary students and 18 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 3 non-university Tertiary students and one specialized Tertiary student who attended classes in another municipality.

, there were 9 students in Arconciel who came from another municipality, while 85 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

External links

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