Chippis
Encyclopedia
Chippis 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 Sierre 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 Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...

 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....

.

Geography

Chippis has an area, , of 2 square kilometre. Of this area, 0.11 square kilometre or 5.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.17 square kilometre or 59.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.48 square kilometre or 24.2% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.07 km² (17.3 acre) or 3.5% is either rivers or lakes and 0.17 square kilometre or 8.6% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.5%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.5%. Out of the forested land, 57.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 3.5% is pastures, while 2.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 3.0% is unproductive vegetation and 5.6% is too rocky for vegetation.

The municipality is located in the Sierre district, on the left bank of the Rhone
Rhône
Rhone can refer to:* Rhone, one of the major rivers of Europe, running through Switzerland and France* Rhône Glacier, the source of the Rhone River and one of the primary contributors to Lake Geneva in the far eastern end of the canton of Valais in Switzerland...

 river.

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 Per fess by a bar wavy Argent chief per pale by a pallet wavy of the same, Gules a Cog-wheel of the first, Azure a church of the first and Gules three Mullets of Five of the first.

Demographics

Chippis has a population of . , 38.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 2.6%. It has changed at a rate of -0.8% due to migration and at a rate of 2.1% due to births and deaths.

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...

 (1,156 or 77.5%) 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 (107 or 7.2%) and 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...

 is the third (91 or 6.1%). There is 1 person who speaks Romansh.

, the population was 51.8% male and 48.2% female. The population was made up of 462 Swiss men (29.2% of the population) and 357 (22.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 486 Swiss women (30.8%) and 275 (17.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 512 or about 34.3% were born in Chippis and lived there in 2000. There were 465 or 31.2% who were born in the same canton, while 91 or 6.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 376 or 25.2% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 25.5% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 59.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.1%.

, there were 587 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 742 married individuals, 83 widows or widowers and 79 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 576 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 158 households that consist of only one person and 51 households with five or more people. , a total of 557 apartments (89.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 44 apartments (7.1%) were seasonally occupied and 22 apartments (3.5%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.61%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Politics

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...

 the most popular party was 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...

 which received 31.08% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (27.89%), 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....

 (18.31%) and 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...

 (13.19%). In the federal election, a total of 533 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

 was 65.3%.

In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
Conseil d'Etat (Switzerland)
In Switzerland, Conseil d'Etat is the name of the council constituting the cantonal government of French-speaking cantons. It is not to be confused with the Conseil des États which is a chamber of the Swiss parliament....

 election a total of 528 votes were cast, of which 33 or about 6.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 66.6%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
Swiss Council of States election, 2007
Elections were held to the Council of States of Switzerland in October and November 2007 as part of the 2007 federal election. All 46 members of the Council of States were elected from all cantons of Switzerland. The first round was held on 21 October...

 election a total of 521 votes were cast, of which 27 or about 5.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 65.3%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Chippis had an unemployment rate of 5%. , there were 46 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 16 businesses involved in this sector. 399 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 17 businesses in this sector. 118 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 33 businesses in this sector. There were 713 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.9% 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 509. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 29, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 389 of which 290 or (74.6%) were in manufacturing and 54 (13.9%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 91. In the tertiary sector; 23 or 25.3% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 9 or 9.9% were in the movement and storage of goods, 20 or 22.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 3.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 11 or 12.1% were in education.

, there were 884 workers who commuted into the municipality and 504 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.8 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 9.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 64.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 1,182 or 79.3% were Roman Catholic, while 50 or 3.4% 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 61 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 4.09% of the population), and there were 2 individuals (or about 0.13% 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 65 (or about 4.36% of the population) who were Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 50 (or about 3.35% 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 79 individuals (or about 5.30% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Chippis about 448 or (30.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 86 or (5.8%) 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 86 who completed tertiary schooling, 59.3% were Swiss men, 27.9% were Swiss women, 9.3% were non-Swiss men.

, there were 17 students in Chippis who came from another municipality, while 114 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
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