Mund
Encyclopedia
Mund 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 Brig 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

Mund is first mentioned in 1259 as Munt. Until about 1800 it was normally known as Wyler and the last mention of that name was in 1850.

Geography

Mund has an area, , of 40.2 square kilometre. Of this area, 24.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 20.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.7% is settled (buildings or roads) and 54.7% is unproductive land.

The municipality is located in the Brig district, An der Nordflanke des Rhonetals auf 1'200 m ü.M. gelegen, bestehend aus der Hauptsiedlung und Weilern, u.a. Bodmen, Ferchen und bis 1854 Finnen. 1259 Munt. Das Dorf M. hiess bis um 1800 Wyler, 1850 wurde. It consists of the village of Mund 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 Bez. Brig. An der Nordflanke des Rhonetals auf 1'200 m ü.M. gelegen, bestehend aus der Hauptsiedlung und Weilern, u.a. Bodmen, Ferchen und bis 1854 Finnen. 1259 Munt. Das Dorf M. hiess bis um 1800 Wyler, 1850 wurde.

The municipalities of Birgisch
Birgisch
Birgisch is a municipality in the district of Brig in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:Birgisch has an area, , of . Of this area, 37.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 46.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 3.0% is settled and 12.6% is unproductive land.The...

 and Mund are seeking approval from the Canton to merge on 1 January 2013 into the municipality of Naters.

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 Gules, a Mitre Or and a Crosier Argent in saltire.

Demographics

Mund has a population of . , 2.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -12.8%. It has changed at a rate of -13% due to migration and at a rate of -1.3% 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....

 (571 or 99.5%) as their first language, 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 second most common (1 or 0.2%) and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 is the third (1 or 0.2%).

, the gender distribution of the population was 50.8% male and 49.2% female. The population was made up of 265 Swiss men (49.8% of the population) and 5 (0.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 258 Swiss women (48.5%) and 4 (0.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 447 or about 77.9% were born in Mund and lived there in 2000. There were 98 or 17.1% who were born in the same canton, while 16 or 2.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6 or 1.0% were born outside of Switzerland. The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 58.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.3%.

, there were 256 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 269 married individuals, 41 widows or widowers and 8 individuals who are divorced.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.69 which is more people per room than 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 95.2% 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 192 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.8 persons per household. There were 49 households that consist of only one person and 27 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 205 households that answered this question, 23.9% were households made up of just one person and there were 3 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 34 married couples without children, 92 married couples with children There were 9 single parents with a child or children. There were 5 households that were made up of unrelated people and 13 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.

there were 124 single family homes (or 67.8% of the total) out of a total of 183 inhabited buildings. There were 49 multi-family buildings (26.8%), along with 3 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (1.6%) and 7 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (3.8%).

, a total of 186 apartments (77.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 42 apartments (17.4%) were seasonally occupied and 13 apartments (5.4%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 7.5 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 3.07%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Sights

The entire hamlet of Bodmen 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 76.82% 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...

 (16.8%), the SP
Social Democratic Party of Switzerland
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland is the largest centre-left political party in Switzerland....

 (3.92%) 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....

 (1.18%). In the federal election, a total of 280 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 61.4%.

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 284 votes were cast, of which 8 or about 2.8% were invalid. The voter participation was 67.8%, 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 275 votes were cast, of which 5 or about 1.8% were invalid. The voter participation was 60.3%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Mund had an unemployment rate of 0.5%. , there were 60 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 41 businesses involved in this sector. 4 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 3 businesses in this sector. 34 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 11 businesses in this sector. There were 271 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 32.8% 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 43. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 18, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 4, all of which were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 21. In the tertiary sector; 2 or 9.5% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 2 or 9.5% were in the movement and storage of goods, 5 or 23.8% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 14.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 3 or 14.3% were in education.

, there were 11 workers who commuted into the municipality and 221 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 20.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 34.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 53.9% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 544 or 94.8% were Roman Catholic, while 5 or 0.9% 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 4 individuals (or about 0.70% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic. 7 (or about 1.22% 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 15 individuals (or about 2.61% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Mund about 193 or (33.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 22 or (3.8%) 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 22 who completed tertiary schooling, 77.3% were Swiss men, 22.7% were Swiss women.

During the 2010-2011 school year there were a total of 40 students in the Mund school system. The education system
Education in Switzerland
The education system in Switzerland is very diverse, because the constitution of Switzerland delegates the authority for the school system mainly to the cantons...

 in the Canton of Valais allows young children to attend one year of non-obligatory 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...

. During that school year, there was one kindergarten class (KG1 or KG2) and 7 kindergarten students. The canton's school system requires students to attend six years of primary school. In Mund there were a total of 3 classes and 40 students in the primary school. The secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling (orientation classes), followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. All the lower secondary students from Mund attend their school in a neighboring municipality. All the upper secondary students attended school in another municipality.

, there were 4 students in Mund who came from another municipality, while 49 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

External links

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