La Sagne
Encyclopedia
La Sagne 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 La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds (district)
La Chaux-de-Fonds District is one of the six districts of the largely French-speaking canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, lying in the Montagnes Neuchâteloises Region. The district capital is the town of La Chaux-de-Fonds...

 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 Neuchâtel 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

La Sagne has an area, , of 25.6 square kilometre. Of this area, 15.29 square kilometre or 59.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 9.45 square kilometre or 37.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.8 square kilometre or 3.1% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.04 km² (9.9 acre) or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and 0.02 km² (4.9 acre) or 0.1% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.3%. Out of the forested land, 33.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.5% is used for growing crops and 45.8% is pastures and 13.5% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The municipality is located in the La Chaux-de-Fonds district, in the eastern part of the Vallée de La Sagne et des Ponts-de-Martel. It consists of the linear village
Linear village
In geography, a linear village, or linear settlement, is a small to medium-sized settlement that is formed around a transport route, such as a road, river, or canal. Wraysbury, a village in Berkshire, is one of the longest villages in England....

 of La Sagne 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 Les Cœudres, Le Crêt, Miéville, La Sagne-Eglise and La Corbatière.

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 Argent, issuant from three Mounts Vert as many Pine trees of the same.

Demographics

La Sagne has a population of . , 6.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 5.1%. It has changed at a rate of 7.6% due to migration and at a rate of 3.7% 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...

 (946 or 94.9%) 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 (29 or 2.9%) 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 (8 or 0.8%).

, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 439 Swiss men (45.9% of the population) and 30 (3.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 455 Swiss women (47.5%) and 33 (3.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 360 or about 36.1% were born in La Sagne and lived there in 2000. There were 362 or 36.3% who were born in the same canton, while 167 or 16.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 82 or 8.2% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 23.8% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 55.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.7%.

, there were 386 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 453 married individuals, 118 widows or widowers and 40 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 374 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 108 households that consist of only one person and 28 households with five or more people. , a total of 363 apartments (85.0% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 51 apartments (11.9%) were seasonally occupied and 13 apartments (3.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 1 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.08%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Heritage sites of national significance

The Double House and the Church 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...

. The entire village of La Sagne is 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 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...

 which received 29.8% 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....

 (18.71%), 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....

 (16.12%) and the LPS Party
Liberal Party of Switzerland
The Liberal Party of Switzerland was a party with economically liberal policies. It was known as a party of the upper class. On 1 January 2009 it merged with the larger Free Democratic Party to establish FDP.The Liberals....

 (13.48%). In the federal election, a total of 415 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 51.6%.

Economy

, La Sagne had an unemployment rate of 2.6%. , there were 89 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 40 businesses involved in this sector. 71 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 15 businesses in this sector. 222 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 30 businesses in this sector. There were 494 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.3% 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 314. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 69, of which 68 were in agriculture and 1 was in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 66 of which 43 or (65.2%) were in manufacturing and 23 (34.8%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 179. In the tertiary sector; 33 or 18.4% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 12 or 6.7% were in the movement and storage of goods, 16 or 8.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was in the information industry, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 24 or 13.4% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 2.2% were in education and 82 or 45.8% were in health care.

, there were 167 workers who commuted into the municipality and 274 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.6 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 16.8% of the workforce coming into La Sagne are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 9.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 53.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 177 or 17.8% were Roman Catholic, while 583 or 58.5% 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 2 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 0.20% of the population), there were 2 individuals (or about 0.20% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church
Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland
The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is the Swiss member church of the Union of Utrecht, also known as Old Catholic Church, originally founded by the jansenists, with a later influx of discontented Catholics following their disappointment with the First Vatican Council. It has 14,000...

, and there were 47 individuals (or about 4.71% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 3 individuals (or about 0.30% of the population) who were Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and 2 (or about 0.20% 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 2 individuals who belonged to another church. 162 (or about 16.25% 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 39 individuals (or about 3.91% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In La Sagne about 342 or (34.3%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 97 or (9.7%) 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 97 who completed tertiary schooling, 59.8% were Swiss men, 29.9% were Swiss women and 7.2% were non-Swiss women.

In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory 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 five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. During the 2010-11 school year, there were 1.5 kindergarten classes with a total of 27 students in La Sagne. In the same year, there were 3 primary classes with a total of 60 students.

, there was one student in La Sagne who came from another municipality, while 88 residents attended schools outside the municipality.
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