Oberegg
Encyclopedia
Oberegg District is a district
Districts of Switzerland
In contrast to centrally organised states, in the federally constituted Switzerland each canton iscompletely free to decide its own internal organisation. Therefore there exists a variety of structures and terminology for the subnational entities between canton and municipality, loosely termed...

 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 Appenzell Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden is the smallest canton of Switzerland by population and the second smallest by area, Basel-City having less area.-Foundation:...

 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 comprises two small exclaves of the canton, a few miles northeast of the rest of Appenzell Innerrhoden.

History

Oberegg is first mentioned in 1470 as a village. Around the time that the church was built (finished in 1655) Oberegg had grown to encompass the region surrounding the village.

The municipality was formally established in 1872 when Hirschberg and Oberegg joined.

Hirschberg was first mentioned in the 11th Century as Hirsberg. Hirschberg was divided during the division of Appenzell
Appenzell
Appenzell is a region and historical canton in the northeast of Switzerland, entirely surrounded by the Canton of St. Gallen....

 in the wake of the Reformation
Reformation in Switzerland
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate and population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss...

. Some communities were left in the old faith, others turned themselves to the new faith. When the canton of Appenzell was divided in 1597 into a Catholic and a Protestant part of the canton, the Catholic majority of Hirschberg wanted to stay with Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden
Appenzell Innerrhoden is the smallest canton of Switzerland by population and the second smallest by area, Basel-City having less area.-Foundation:...

, while the Protestant minority wanted to go to Ausserrhoden
Appenzell Ausserrhoden
Appenzell Ausserrhoden is a canton of Switzerland. The seat of the government and parliament is Herisau, judicial authorities are in Trogen. Appenzell Ausserrhoden is located in the north east of Switzerland, bordering the cantons of St...

. In the division of Appenzell (known as the Landteilungsbrief, literally Land division letter or treaty), the land owned by the Protestants was separated from Hirschberg and given to the Protestant Ausserrhoden, where it became the municipality of Reute
Reute
Reute is a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland.-History:Reute was created due to the division of Appenzell in the wake of the Reformation. Some communities were left in the old faith, others turned themselves to the new faith...

. Catholic Hirschberg would later became part of the Ausserrhoden municipality of Oberegg.

Geography

Oberegg has an area, , of 14.7 square kilometres (5.7 sq mi). Of this area, 51.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 42.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 5.5% is settled (buildings or roads) and 0.1% is unproductive land.

The district is the outermost portion of the half-canton toward the Rhine valley . It consists of the village of Oberegg 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 Büriswilen, Kapf, Eschenmoos, Sankt Anton and numerous individual farm houses.

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 Impaled per chevron Sable a Mullet Or and Vert a Cross couped pattee Argent and of the last a Deer Gules trippant on a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Vert.

The coat of arms is a divided vertically to show the coat of arms of Hirschenberg (right hand side) and Oberegg (left hand side). On the left hand side there is a silver cross on a green background at the bottom. At the top, the background is black with a golden star. On the right hand side, the bottom of the coat of arms shows three mounts in green. At the top there is a red deer strutting on a silver background.

Demographics

Oberegg has a population of . , 8.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999-2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 3.5%. It has changed at a rate of 8.2% due to migration and at a rate of 0.5% 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....

 (1,738 or 96.8%), with 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...

 being second most common (13 or 0.7%) 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...

 being third (8 or 0.4%). There are 3 people who speak 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...

 and 2 people who speak Romansh.

Of the population in the district 933 or about 51.9% were born in Oberegg and lived there in 2000. There were 31 or 1.7% who were born in the same canton, while 659 or 36.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 154 or 8.6% were born outside of Switzerland.

In there were 15 live births to Swiss citizens and 2 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 22 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 7 while the foreign population increased by 2. There were 6 non-Swiss men and 2 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 22 and the non-Swiss population increased by 5 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.4%.

, there were 764 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 870 married individuals, 83 widows or widowers and 79 individuals who are divorced.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.55 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.59 per room. In this case, a room is defined as space of a housing unit of at least 4 m² (43.1 sq ft) as normal bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, kitchens and habitable cellars and attics. About 67.6% 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 680 private households in the district, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 173 households that consist of only one person and 82 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 689 households that answered this question, 25.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 15 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 201 married couples without children, 252 married couples with children There were 28 single parents with a child or children. There were 11 households that were made up of unrelated people and 9 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.

there were 425 single family homes (or 61.4% of the total) out of a total of 692 inhabited buildings. There were 46 multi-family buildings (6.6%), along with 178 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (25.7%) and 43 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.2%). Of the single family homes 234 were built before 1919, while 34 were built between 1990 and 2000.

there were 852 apartments in the district. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 234. There were 11 single room apartments and 394 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 660 apartments (77.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 130 apartments (15.3%) were seasonally occupied and 62 apartments (7.3%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.5 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the district, , was 1.35%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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 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...

 received 90.13% of the vote. In the federal election, a total of 334 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 24.9%.

Economy

, Oberegg had an unemployment rate of 0.8%. , there were 127 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 61 businesses involved in this sector. 309 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 37 businesses in this sector. 200 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 58 businesses in this sector. There were 876 residents of the district who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 39.5% 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 523. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 81, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 287 of which 212 or (73.9%) were in manufacturing and 75 (26.1%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 155. In the tertiary sector; 42 or 27.1% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 19 or 12.3% were in the movement and storage of goods, 24 or 15.5% were in a hotel or restaurant, 4 or 2.6% were in the information industry, 6 or 3.9% were the insurance or financial industry, 11 or 7.1% were technical professionals or scientists, 26 or 16.8% were in education and 10 or 6.5% were in health care.

, there were 236 workers who commuted into the district and 516 workers who commuted away. The district is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.2 workers leaving the district for every one entering. About 16.9% of the workforce coming into Oberegg are coming from outside Switzerland, while 1.0% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 9% used public transportation to get to work, and 54.8% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 1,269 or 70.7% were Roman Catholic, while 348 or 19.4% 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 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 0.22% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs 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 32 individuals (or about 1.78% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 34 (or about 1.89% 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. 86 (or about 4.79% 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 22 individuals (or about 1.22% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Oberegg about 637 or (35.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 158 or (8.8%) 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 158 who completed tertiary schooling, 66.5% were Swiss men, 19.0% were Swiss women, 10.1% were non-Swiss men and 4.4% were non-Swiss women.

, there were 41 students in Oberegg who came from another district, while 35 residents attended schools outside the district.

External links

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