Includes population and area from Niederwil

Niederwil, Solothurn

Niederwil was a municipality in the district of Lebern in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. In 2011 Niederwil merged into Riedholz.-Geography:...

 which became part of Riedholz in 2011

Geography

Lebern has an area, , of 117.28 square kilometres (45.3 sq mi). Of this area, 46.97 km² (18.1 sq mi) or 40.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 51.23 km² (19.8 sq mi) or 43.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 16.89 km² (6.5 sq mi) or 14.4% is settled (buildings or roads), 1.53 km² (0.590736302646579 sq mi) or 1.3% is either rivers or lakes and 0.66 km² (0.254827424671073 sq mi) or 0.6% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.3% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 7.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.3%. Out of the forested land, 41.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 34.2% is used for growing crops and 5.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the district is flowing water.

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 Pale chevrony Or and Sable.

Demographics

Lebern has a population of .

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....

 (36,787 or 87.6%), with 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 second most common (1,589 or 3.8%) 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...

 being third (735 or 1.7%). There are 34 people who speak Romansh.

, the gender distribution of the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was made up of 16,823 Swiss men (38.8% of the population) and 4,659 (10.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 17,730 Swiss women (40.9%) and 4,102 (9.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 12,874 or about 30.6% were born in Lebern and lived there in 2000. There were 10,524 or 25.1% who were born in the same canton, while 10,380 or 24.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6,853 or 16.3% were born outside of Switzerland.

In there were 255 live births to Swiss citizens and 72 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 387 deaths of Swiss citizens and 17 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 132 while the foreign population increased by 55. There were 38 Swiss men and 22 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 168 non-Swiss men and 98 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 24 and the non-Swiss population increased by 265 people. This represents a population growth rate of 0.7%.

, there were 15,786 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 20,906 married individuals, 2,708 widows or widowers and 2,608 individuals who are divorced.

There were 5,985 households that consist of only one person and 1,035 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 18,497 households that answered this question, 32.4% were households made up of just one person and 156 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 5,817 married couples without children, 5,207 married couples with children There were 869 single parents with a child or children. There were 190 households that were made up unrelated people and 273 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.

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 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 28.79% 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....

 (21.27%), 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....

 (21.15%) and 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...

 (18.08%). In the federal election, a total of 14,271 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 48.9%.

Religion

From the , 16,292 or 38.8% were Roman Catholic, while 14,664 or 34.9% 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 379 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 0.90% of the population), there were 315 individuals (or about 0.75% 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 729 individuals (or about 1.74% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 individuals (or about 0.01% of the population) who were Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and 2,071 (or about 4.93% 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 were 106 individuals who were 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...

, 150 individuals who were Hindu

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 and 35 individuals who belonged to another church. 5,943 (or about 14.15% 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 1,318 individuals (or about 3.14% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Lebern about 16,394 or (39.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 4,923 or (11.7%) 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 4,923 who completed tertiary schooling, 68.6% were Swiss men, 20.0% were Swiss women, 7.7% were non-Swiss men and 3.7% were non-Swiss women.