Guttet-Feschel
Encyclopedia
Guttet-Feschel is a municipality
in the district of Leuk in the canton
of Valais
in Switzerland
. It was formed from the union of the municipalities of Guttet and Feschel in 2000.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.6%. Out of the forested land, 24.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.1% is used for growing crops and 9.4% is pastures and 27.2% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.3% is in lakes and 0.3% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 9.8% is unproductive vegetation and 21.1% is too rocky for vegetation.
The municipality, located in the Leuk district, was created by the merger of Guttet and Fesche.
Most of the population speaks German
(399 or 97.3%) as their first language, Albanian
is the second most common (5 or 1.2%) and French
is the third (4 or 1.0%). There is 1 person who speaks Italian
.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.6% male and 51.4% female. The population was made up of 211 Swiss men (46.8% of the population) and 8 (1.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 220 Swiss women (48.8%) and 12 (2.7%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 285 or about 69.5% were born in Guttet-Feschel and lived there in 2000. There were 68 or 16.6% who were born in the same canton, while 34 or 8.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 12 or 2.9% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 27.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 52.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.2%.
, there were 164 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 202 married individuals, 32 widows or widowers and 12 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.68 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.63 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 84.1% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage
or a rent-to-own agreement).
, there were 161 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 54 households that consist of only one person and 14 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 169 households that answered this question, 32.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 2 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 30 married couples without children, 53 married couples with children There were 19 single parents with a child or children. There were 3 households that were made up of unrelated people and 8 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 141 single family homes (or 65.3% of the total) out of a total of 216 inhabited buildings. There were 43 multi-family buildings (19.9%), along with 17 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (7.9%) and 15 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.9%).
, a total of 157 apartments (54.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 105 apartments (36.2%) were seasonally occupied and 28 apartments (9.7%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.32%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
the most popular party was the CVP
which received 53.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP
(22.32%), the SP
(15.79%) and the FDP
(7.66%). In the federal election, a total of 224 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
was 63.5%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
election a total of 199 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 58.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
election a total of 222 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 64.4%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.
the total number of full-time equivalent
jobs was 44. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 7, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 14 of which 3 or (21.4%) were in manufacturing and 11 (78.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 23. In the tertiary sector; 5 or 21.7% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 17.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 4 or 17.4% were technical professionals or scientists, 3 or 13.0% were in education and 6 or 26.1% were in health care.
, there were 8 workers who commuted into the municipality and 112 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 14.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 17.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 59.1% used a private car.
. Of the rest of the population, there was 1 member of an Orthodox church
. There were 5 (or about 1.22% of the population) who were Islam
ic. 3 (or about 0.73% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
or atheist
, and 7 individuals (or about 1.71% of the population) did not answer the question.
). Of the 12 who completed tertiary schooling, 75.0% were Swiss men, 25.0% were Swiss women.
, there were 51 students from Guttet-Feschel who attended schools outside the 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 Leuk 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....
. It was formed from the union of the municipalities of Guttet and Feschel in 2000.
History
Feschel is first mentioned in 1267 as Vexli, Veselli. Guttet is first mentioned in 1261 as de gottet.Geography
Guttet-Feschel has an area, , of 10.5 square kilometre. Of this area, 3.87 square kilometre or 36.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 2.92 square kilometre or 27.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.37 square kilometre or 3.5% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.06 km² (14.8 acre) or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes and 3.28 square kilometre or 31.2% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.6%. Out of the forested land, 24.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.1% is used for growing crops and 9.4% is pastures and 27.2% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.3% is in lakes and 0.3% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 9.8% is unproductive vegetation and 21.1% is too rocky for vegetation.
The municipality, located in the Leuk district, was created by the merger of Guttet and Fesche.
Demographics
Guttet-Feschel has a population of . , 4.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -1.5%. It has changed at a rate of 1.5% due to migration and at a rate of -3.3% due to births and deaths.Most of the population speaks 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....
(399 or 97.3%) as their first language, Albanian
Albanian language
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...
is the second most common (5 or 1.2%) and 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...
is the third (4 or 1.0%). There is 1 person who speaks 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 gender distribution of the population was 48.6% male and 51.4% female. The population was made up of 211 Swiss men (46.8% of the population) and 8 (1.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 220 Swiss women (48.8%) and 12 (2.7%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 285 or about 69.5% were born in Guttet-Feschel and lived there in 2000. There were 68 or 16.6% who were born in the same canton, while 34 or 8.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 12 or 2.9% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 27.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 52.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.2%.
, there were 164 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 202 married individuals, 32 widows or widowers and 12 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.68 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.63 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 84.1% of the total households were owner occupied, or in other words did not pay rent (though they may have a mortgage
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...
or a rent-to-own agreement).
, there were 161 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 54 households that consist of only one person and 14 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 169 households that answered this question, 32.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 2 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 30 married couples without children, 53 married couples with children There were 19 single parents with a child or children. There were 3 households that were made up of unrelated people and 8 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 141 single family homes (or 65.3% of the total) out of a total of 216 inhabited buildings. There were 43 multi-family buildings (19.9%), along with 17 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (7.9%) and 15 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.9%).
, a total of 157 apartments (54.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 105 apartments (36.2%) were seasonally occupied and 28 apartments (9.7%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.32%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Sights
The entire village of Feschel is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage SitesInventory 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 electionSwiss 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 53.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were 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...
(22.32%), the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
(15.79%) 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....
(7.66%). In the federal election, a total of 224 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 63.5%.
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 199 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 58.5%, 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 222 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 2.3% were invalid. The voter participation was 64.4%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Economy
, Guttet-Feschel had an unemployment rate of 2.6%. , there were 20 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 9 businesses involved in this sector. 14 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 4 businesses in this sector. 36 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 11 businesses in this sector. There were 164 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 34.1% 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 44. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 7, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 14 of which 3 or (21.4%) were in manufacturing and 11 (78.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 23. In the tertiary sector; 5 or 21.7% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 17.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 4 or 17.4% were technical professionals or scientists, 3 or 13.0% were in education and 6 or 26.1% were in health care.
, there were 8 workers who commuted into the municipality and 112 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 14.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 17.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 59.1% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 373 or 91.0% were Roman Catholic, while 21 or 5.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed ChurchSwiss 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 was 1 member of an Orthodox church
Orthodox Christianity
The term Orthodox Christianity may refer to:* the Eastern Orthodox Church and its various geographical subdivisions...
. There were 5 (or about 1.22% 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. 3 (or about 0.73% 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 7 individuals (or about 1.71% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Guttet-Feschel about 143 or (34.9%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 12 or (2.9%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a FachhochschuleFachhochschule
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 12 who completed tertiary schooling, 75.0% were Swiss men, 25.0% were Swiss women.
, there were 51 students from Guttet-Feschel who attended schools outside the municipality.