page_title: Solothurn
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Solothurn / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Aarebrücke Westtangente Solothurn, Eröffnungstag 8. 8. 2008
context_page_description: Solothurn is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains.
  The town is the only municipality of the district of the same name.
  The town got its name from Salodurum, a Roman-era settlement. From 1530 to 1792 it was the seat of the French ambassador to Switzerland. The pedestrian-only old town was built between 1530 and 1792 and shows an impressive array of Baroque architecture, combining Italian Grandezza, French style, and Swiss ideas. The town has eighteen structures listed as heritage sites.
  Agriculture, once the dominant sector of employment, has become almost non-existent. Most people today are employed in manufacturing and education.
  The official language of Solothurn is German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.
context_section_description: Solothurn has a population (as of December 2018) of 16,777. As of 2008, 21.1% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 4.4%.
  Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (13,270 or 85.7%), with Italian being second most common (469 or 3.0%) and Albanian being third (261 or 1.7%). There are 193 people who speak French and 19 people who speak Romansh.
  As of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 48.1% male and 51.9% female. The population was made up of 5,891 Swiss men (37.0% of the population) and 1,775 (11.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 6,669 Swiss women (41.8%) and 1,604 (10.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 3,864 or about 24.9% were born in Solothurn and lived there in 2000. There were 3,630 or 23.4% who were born in the same canton, while 4,135 or 26.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,193 or 20.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
  In 2008 there were 115 live births to Swiss citizens and 27 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 190 deaths of Swiss citizens and 10 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 75 while the foreign population increased by 17. There were 8 Swiss men and 13 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 91 non-Swiss men and 78 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 98 and the non-Swiss population increased by 161 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.7%.
  The age distribution, as of 2000, in Solothurn is; 913 children or 5.9% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 2,013 teenagers or 13.0% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 888 people or 5.7% of the population are between 20 and 24 years old. 4,832 people or 31.2% are between 25 and 44, and 3,678 people or 23.7% are between 45 and 64. The senior population distribution is 2,068 people or 13.4% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 1,097 people or 7.1% who are over 80.
  As of 2000, there were 6,784 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 6,403 married individuals, 1,144 widows or widowers and 1,158 individuals who are divorced.
  As of 2000, there were 7,447 private households in the municipality, and an average of 1.9 persons per household. There were 3,468 households that consist of only one person and 303 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 7,625 households that answered this question, 45.5% were households made up of just one person and there were 49 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 1,907 married couples without children, 1,455 married couples with children There were 405 single parents with a child or children. There were 163 households that were made up of unrelated people and 178 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
  In 2000 there were 1,311 single family homes (or 44.3% of the total) out of a total of 2,957 inhabited buildings. There were 838 multi-family buildings (28.3%), along with 441 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (14.9%) and 367 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (12.4%). Of the single family homes 161 were built before 1919, while 62 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (443) were built between 1919 and 1945.
  In 2000 there were 8,586 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 2,954. There were 728 single room apartments and 1,634 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 7,272 apartments (84.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 794 apartments (9.2%) were seasonally occupied and 520 apartments (6.1%) were empty. As of 2009, th
caption: Aare Bridge and a newer section of Solothurn
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (20060914.r.77)  Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:08:08 12:02:19", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "990", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7741", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/350", "EXIF FNumber": "19/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:08:08 10:07:29", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:08:08 10:07:29", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "21/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "31", "EXIF SubSecTime": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "90", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2583", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1883", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "864", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "46", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}