Evionnaz
Encyclopedia
Evionnaz 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 Saint-Maurice 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....

.

History

Evionnaz is first mentioned in 1263 as Eviona. It became an independent municipality in 1822, when it separated from Saint-Maurice.

Geography

Evionnaz has an area, , of 48 square kilometre. Of this area, 12.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 19.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.0% is settled (buildings or roads) and 66.8% is unproductive land.

The municipality is located in the Saint-Maurice district. The large district stretches from 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 over to the Dents-du-Midi mountains. It consists of the village of Evionnaz and the hamlets
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

 of La Balmaz and La Rasse.

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 City Walls embattled Argent with entrance towered and embattled and with a window Sable, in chief three Barrulets wavy of the second.

Demographics

Evionnaz has a population of . , 14.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 7.4%. It has changed at a rate of 10.5% due to migration and at a rate of 3% 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...

 (850 or 91.4%) as their first language, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 is the second most common (31 or 3.3%) and 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 third (12 or 1.3%). There are 12 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 51.1% male and 48.9% female. The population was made up of 462 Swiss men (43.5% of the population) and 81 (7.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 450 Swiss women (42.4%) and 69 (6.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 431 or about 46.3% were born in Evionnaz and lived there in 2000. There were 242 or 26.0% who were born in the same canton, while 127 or 13.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 118 or 12.7% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 28.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 56.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.3%.

, there were 397 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 428 married individuals, 57 widows or widowers and 48 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 362 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 113 households that consist of only one person and 41 households with five or more people. , a total of 348 apartments (84.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 42 apartments (10.1%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (5.8%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 5.6 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.65%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Sights

The entire village of Evionnaz is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
The Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage.-Sites of national importance:-Types:...


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 37.12% 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....

 (20.87%), 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...

 (16.92%) 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....

 (16.18%). In the federal election, a total of 449 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 60.9%.

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 411 votes were cast, of which 12 or about 2.9% were invalid. The voter participation was 56.0%, which is similar to 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 446 votes were cast, of which 21 or about 4.7% were invalid. The voter participation was 61.2%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Evionnaz had an unemployment rate of 6.2%. , there were 17 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 459 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 15 businesses in this sector. 132 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 24 businesses in this sector. There were 429 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
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 558. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 14, of which 9 were in agriculture and 5 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 439 of which 404 or (92.0%) were in manufacturing and 35 (8.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 105. In the tertiary sector; 47 or 44.8% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 3.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 20 or 19.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 4 or 3.8% were the insurance or financial industry, 4 or 3.8% were in education and 4 or 3.8% were in health care.

, there were 430 workers who commuted into the municipality and 288 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.5 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 10.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 70.4% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 770 or 82.8% were Roman Catholic, while 58 or 6.2% 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 14 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 1.51% of the population), and there were 31 individuals (or about 3.33% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 19 (or about 2.04% 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 was 1 person who was Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 and 1 person who was Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

. 38 (or about 4.09% 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 13 individuals (or about 1.40% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Evionnaz about 355 or (38.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 59 or (6.3%) 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 59 who completed tertiary schooling, 67.8% were Swiss men, 18.6% were Swiss women and 8.5% were non-Swiss women.

, there were 28 students in Evionnaz who came from another municipality, while 91 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

External links

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