Rickenbach, Basel-Country
Encyclopedia
Rickenbach 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 Sissach
Sissach (district)
Sissach District is one of the five districts of the largely German-speaking canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland. It has a population of . The district occupies the western portion of Basel-Country, bordering the neighbouring cantons of canton of Aargau and Solothurn. Its capital is the town of...

 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 Basel-Country
Basel-Country
Basel-Landschaft , is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland. The capital is Liestal...

 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

Rickenbach has an area, , of 2.89 square kilometres (1.1 sq mi). Of this area, 1.62 km² (0.625485496919907 sq mi) or 56.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.95 km² (0.366797050662908 sq mi) or 32.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.31 km² (0.119691669163686 sq mi) or 10.7% is settled (buildings or roads) and 0.01 km² (2.5 acre) or 0.3% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 6.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.1%. Out of the forested land, 31.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 8.7% is used for growing crops and 29.8% is pastures, while 17.6% is used for orchards or vine crops.

The municipality is located in the Sissach district, in a side valley off the Ergolz
Ergolz
left|thumb|Source of the Ergolz in [[Oltingen]]The Ergolz is the main river in the canton of Basel-Landschaft. It rises on Mount Geisflue in the Faltenjura mountains in the upper region of Basel-Landschaft, on the border with Aargau and Solothurn, and joins the Rhine at Augst...

 valley.

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 Per fess Gules and Azure, overall a Bar wavy Argent.

Demographics

Rickenbach has a population of . , 8.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 8.6%.

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....

 (486 or 93.3%), with some type of Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...

 being second most common (5 or 1%) 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 (4 or 0.8%).

, the gender distribution of the population was 50.5% male and 49.5% female. The population was made up of 510 Swiss citizens (92.2% of the population), and 43 non-Swiss residents (7.8%) Of the population in the municipality 151 or about 29.0% were born in Rickenbach and lived there in 2000. There were 164 or 31.5% who were born in the same canton, while 120 or 23.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 65 or 12.5% were born outside of Switzerland.

In there were 5 live births to Swiss citizens and were 3 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 2 while the foreign population remained the same. There . At the same time, there were 2 non-Swiss men and 3 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 a decrease of 6 and the non-Swiss population decreased by 5 people. This represents a population growth rate of -2.0%.

The age distribution, , in Rickenbach is; 39 children or 7.1% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 80 teenagers or 14.5% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 58 people or 10.5% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 79 people or 14.3% are between 30 and 39, 112 people or 20.3% are between 40 and 49, and 129 people or 23.3% are between 50 and 64. The senior population distribution is 41 people or 7.4% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 15 people or 2.7% who are over 80.

, there were 223 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 263 married individuals, 21 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.

the average number of residents per living room was 0.59 which is about equal to the cantonal average of 0.56 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 62.4% 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 198 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 44 households that consist of only one person and 10 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 204 households that answered this question, 21.6% were households made up of just one person and 3 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 62 married couples without children, 76 married couples with children There were 12 single parents with a child or children. There was 1 household that was made up unrelated people and 6 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.

there were 97 single family homes (or 62.6% of the total) out of a total of 155 inhabited buildings. There were 16 multi-family buildings (10.3%), along with 39 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (25.2%) and 3 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (1.9%). Of the single family homes 15 were built before 1919, while 22 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (27) were built between 1981 and 1990.

there were 219 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 58. There were 5 single room apartments and 84 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 189 apartments (86.3% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 22 apartments (10.0%) were seasonally occupied and 8 apartments (3.7%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 7.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0%.

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 43.01% 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....

 (18.21%), the Green Party
Green Party of Switzerland
The Green Party of Switzerland is the fifth-largest party in the National Council of Switzerland, and the largest party that is not represented on the Federal Council.-History:...

 (14.81%) 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....

 (10.26%). In the federal election, a total of 225 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 54.9%.

Economy

, Rickenbach had an unemployment rate of 1.45%. , there were 52 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 15 businesses involved in this sector. 9 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 4 businesses in this sector. 12 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 6 businesses in this sector. There were 287 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.6% 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 47. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 28, of which 27 were in agriculture and 1 was in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 9, of which 6 or (66.7%) were in manufacturing and 3 (33.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 10. In the tertiary sector; 1 was in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 30.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 40.0% were in education.

, there were 11 workers who commuted into the municipality and 235 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 21.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 21.3% used public transportation to get to work, and 51.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 73 or 14.0% were Roman Catholic, while 332 or 63.7% 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 0.38% of the population), there were 4 individuals (or about 0.77% 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 6 individuals (or about 1.15% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 17 (or about 3.26% 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 2 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...

 and 8 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...

. 62 (or about 11.90% 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 2.88% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Rickenbach about 214 or (41.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 51 or (9.8%) 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 51 who completed tertiary schooling, 68.6% were Swiss men, 21.6% were Swiss women.

, there were 80 students from Rickenbach who attended schools outside the municipality.

External links

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