Liddes
Encyclopedia
Liddes is a municipality
in the district of Entremont in the canton
of Valais
in Switzerland
.
It lies north of Bourg-Saint-Pierre
and north-west of the Grand Combin
.
The municipality is located on the road over the Great St Bernard Pass. It consists of a number of hamlets
including Liddes-Ville, Chandonne, Fontaine, Rive-Haute, Drance, Fornex, Les Moulins, Vichères, Chez-Petit and Palasui.
of the municipal coat of arms
is Gules, St. George armoured Azure haloed Or riding a Horse Argent killing the Dragon Vert.
Most of the population speaks French
(648 or 98.3%) as their first language, German
is the second most common (5 or 0.8%) and Portuguese
is the third (3 or 0.5%).
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.9% male and 49.1% female. The population was made up of 357 Swiss men (47.4% of the population) and 26 (3.5%) non-Swiss men. There were 341 Swiss women (45.3%) and 29 (3.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 447 or about 67.8% were born in Liddes and lived there in 2000. There were 99 or 15.0% who were born in the same canton, while 59 or 9.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 33 or 5.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 53.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.3%.
, there were 279 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 318 married individuals, 47 widows or widowers and 15 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.59 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 86.4% 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 255 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 79 households that consist of only one person and 40 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 261 households that answered this question, 30.3% were households made up of just one person and there were 7 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 66 married couples without children, 89 married couples with children There were 11 single parents with a child or children. There were 3 households that were made up of unrelated people and 6 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 281 single family homes (or 72.2% of the total) out of a total of 389 inhabited buildings. There were 53 multi-family buildings (13.6%), along with 39 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (10.0%) and 16 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (4.1%).
, a total of 243 apartments (52.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 189 apartments (40.7%) were seasonally occupied and 32 apartments (6.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.7 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
. The entire village of Liddes is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
.
the most popular party was the CVP
which received 57% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP
(20.91%), the SVP
(9.75%) and the SP
(8.99%). In the federal election, a total of 354 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
was 66.7%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat
election a total of 382 votes were cast, of which 16 or about 4.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 73.3%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election
election a total of 340 votes were cast, of which 26 or about 7.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 65.8%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
the total number of full-time equivalent
jobs was 135. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 37, of which 36 were in agriculture and were in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 32 of which 14 or (43.8%) were in manufacturing and 10 (31.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 66. In the tertiary sector; 6 or 9.1% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 8 or 12.1% were in the movement and storage of goods, 12 or 18.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 11 or 16.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 5 or 7.6% were in education.
, there were 6 workers who commuted into the municipality and 149 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 24.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 8.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 69.2% used a private car.
. Of the rest of the population, there were 2 members of an Orthodox church
(or about 0.30% of the population), and there was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. 17 (or about 2.58% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
or atheist
, and 24 individuals (or about 3.64% of the population) did not answer the question.
). Of the 35 who completed tertiary schooling, 62.9% were Swiss men, 28.6% were Swiss women.
, there were 6 students in Liddes who came from another municipality, while 37 residents 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 Entremont 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
Liddes has an area, , of 60.2 square kilometre. Of this area, 33.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 23.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and 41.5% is unproductive land.It lies north of Bourg-Saint-Pierre
Bourg-Saint-Pierre
Bourg-Saint-Pierre is a municipality in the district of Entremont in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:...
and north-west of the Grand Combin
Grand Combin
The Grand Combin is a mountain in the western Pennine Alps in Switzerland. With its high summit it is one of the highest peaks in the Alps and the second most prominent of its range...
.
The municipality is located on the road over the Great St Bernard Pass. It consists of a number of 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...
including Liddes-Ville, Chandonne, Fontaine, Rive-Haute, Drance, Fornex, Les Moulins, Vichères, Chez-Petit and Palasui.
Coat of arms
The blazonBlazon
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 Gules, St. George armoured Azure haloed Or riding a Horse Argent killing the Dragon Vert.
Demographics
Liddes has a population of . , 6.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 8.7%. It has changed at a rate of 10% due to migration and at a rate of 1.2% 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...
(648 or 98.3%) 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 (5 or 0.8%) and 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 third (3 or 0.5%).
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.9% male and 49.1% female. The population was made up of 357 Swiss men (47.4% of the population) and 26 (3.5%) non-Swiss men. There were 341 Swiss women (45.3%) and 29 (3.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 447 or about 67.8% were born in Liddes and lived there in 2000. There were 99 or 15.0% who were born in the same canton, while 59 or 9.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 33 or 5.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 53.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.3%.
, there were 279 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 318 married individuals, 47 widows or widowers and 15 individuals who are divorced.
the average number of residents per living room was 0.59 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 86.4% 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 255 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. There were 79 households that consist of only one person and 40 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 261 households that answered this question, 30.3% were households made up of just one person and there were 7 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 66 married couples without children, 89 married couples with children There were 11 single parents with a child or children. There were 3 households that were made up of unrelated people and 6 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 281 single family homes (or 72.2% of the total) out of a total of 389 inhabited buildings. There were 53 multi-family buildings (13.6%), along with 39 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (10.0%) and 16 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (4.1%).
, a total of 243 apartments (52.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 189 apartments (40.7%) were seasonally occupied and 32 apartments (6.9%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.7 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance
The Les Moulins is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significanceSwiss 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 Liddes 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 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 57% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were 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....
(20.91%), 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...
(9.75%) and the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....
(8.99%). In the federal election, a total of 354 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 66.7%.
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 382 votes were cast, of which 16 or about 4.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 73.3%, 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 340 votes were cast, of which 26 or about 7.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 65.8%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Economy
, Liddes had an unemployment rate of 2.6%. , there were 66 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 23 businesses involved in this sector. 34 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 10 businesses in this sector. 86 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 18 businesses in this sector. There were 273 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 34.4% 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 135. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 37, of which 36 were in agriculture and were in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 32 of which 14 or (43.8%) were in manufacturing and 10 (31.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 66. In the tertiary sector; 6 or 9.1% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 8 or 12.1% were in the movement and storage of goods, 12 or 18.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 11 or 16.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 5 or 7.6% were in education.
, there were 6 workers who commuted into the municipality and 149 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 24.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 8.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 69.2% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 593 or 90.0% were Roman Catholic, while 22 or 3.3% 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 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 0.30% of the population), and there was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. 17 (or about 2.58% 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 24 individuals (or about 3.64% of the population) did not answer the question.
Education
In Liddes about 227 or (34.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 35 or (5.3%) 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 35 who completed tertiary schooling, 62.9% were Swiss men, 28.6% were Swiss women.
, there were 6 students in Liddes who came from another municipality, while 37 residents attended schools outside the municipality.