Veysonnaz
Encyclopedia
Veysonnaz 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 Sion in the Swiss 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...

.

Geography

Veysonnaz has an area, , of 1.1 square kilometre. Of this area, 0.32 square kilometre or 29.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.49 square kilometre or 44.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.29 square kilometre or 26.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and 0.01 km² (2.5 acre) or 0.9% is unproductive land.

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 13.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 10.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.8% of the area Out of the forested land, 34.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 10.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 26.4% is pastures, while 2.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.

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, issuant from Coupeaux Vert a Pine Tree of the same trunked proper.

Demographics

Veysonnaz has a population of . , 14.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 8.6%. It has changed at a rate of -0.4% due to migration and at a rate of 2.4% 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...

 (441 or 94.4%) 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 (9 or 1.9%) 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 (6 or 1.3%). There are 2 people who speak 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...

.

, the population was 47.6% male and 52.4% female. The population was made up of 220 Swiss men (40.4% of the population) and 39 (7.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 251 Swiss women (46.1%) and 34 (6.3%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 305 or about 65.3% were born in Veysonnaz and lived there in 2000. There were 74 or 15.8% who were born in the same canton, while 22 or 4.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 48 or 10.3% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 22.3% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 62.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.6%.

, there were 207 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 218 married individuals, 28 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.

, there were 187 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 60 households that consist of only one person and 11 households with five or more people. , a total of 177 apartments (25.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 490 apartments (71.7%) were seasonally occupied and 16 apartments (2.3%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 7.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.26%.

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 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 60.65% 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....

 (17.39%), 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...

 (8.92%) 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....

 (4.61%). In the federal election, a total of 291 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 71.1%.

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 266 votes were cast, of which 19 or about 7.1% were invalid. The voter participation was 65.0%, 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 289 votes were cast, of which 16 or about 5.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 72.8%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.

Economy

, Veysonnaz had an unemployment rate of 3.4%. , there were 22 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 21 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 5 businesses in this sector. 143 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 30 businesses in this sector. There were 235 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.6% 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 139. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 7, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 19, all of which were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 113. In the tertiary sector; 17 or 15.0% were in the sale or repair of motor vehicles, 17 or 15.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 36 or 31.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 1.8% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 2.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 3 or 2.7% were in education and 1 was in health care.

, there were 65 workers who commuted into the municipality and 114 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 6.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 74.9% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 409 or 87.6% were Roman Catholic, while 9 or 1.9% 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 3 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 0.64% of the population), and there were 8 individuals (or about 1.71% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, 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 and 1 person who was 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...

. 13 (or about 2.78% 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 26 individuals (or about 5.57% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Veysonnaz about 148 or (31.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 45 or (9.6%) 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 45 who completed tertiary schooling, 55.6% were Swiss men, 24.4% were Swiss women, 11.1% were non-Swiss men.

, there were 16 students in Veysonnaz who came from another municipality, while 43 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Sport

It is most known for its winter sport
Winter sport
A winter sport is a sport which is played on snow or ice. Most such sports are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally such sports were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and ice allow more flexibility...

s, as the home of winter sports resorts and the Piste de l'Ours ("Path of the Bear") trail on which some Alpine Ski World Cup competitions take place.

It is part of the Les 4 Vallées ski resort, one of the largest in the Alps.

External links

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