Saint-Gingolph, Switzerland
Saint-Gingolph () is a municipality in the district of Monthey in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. In 2018, it had a population of 981. The municipality is the Swiss portion of the town of Saint-Gingolph, which straddles the France–Switzerland border provided by the Morge river. The French (western) side of the town is known as Saint-Gingolph, Haute-Savoie. History. Saint-Gingolph is first mentioned in 1153 as "Sanctus Gengulfus". Geography. Saint-Gingolph has an area, , of . Of this area, or 11.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 61.0% is forested. Of the  rest of the land, or 4.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes and or 22.7% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.6%. Out of the forested land, 55.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 2.1% is pastures and 8.8% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. Of the unproductive areas , 13.7% is unproductive vegetation and 9.0% is too rocky for vegetation. The municipality is located in the Monthey district, along the La Morge stream. The municipality straddles the French border. Before 1569, Saint-Gingolph, the hamlet of Le Freney and the Haute-Savoie village of Saint-Gingolph formed a single municipality. Coat of arms. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is "Per bend serrated Argent and Gules overall an Otter rampant Sable langued Gules and armed of the first in chief sinister a Mullet of Five of the second." Demographics. Saint-Gingolph has a population () of . , 17.3% of  the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 23.3%. It has changed at a rate of 25.6% due to migration and at a rate of 0.6% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (672 or 86.9%) as their first language, German is the second most common (31 or 4.0%) and Serbo-Croatian is the third (19 or 2.5%). There are 5 people who speak Italian. , the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was made up of 338 Swiss men (39.7% of  the population) and 85 (10.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 360 Swiss women (42.3%) and 69 (8.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 243 or about 31.4% were born in Saint-Gingolph and lived there in 2000. There were 119 or 15.4% who were born in the same canton, while 178 or 23.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 130 or 16.8% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0-19 years old) make up 22.5% of the population, while adults (20-64 years old) make up 56.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make  up 21.3%. , there were 321 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 339 married individuals, 54 widows or widowers and 59 individuals who are divorced. , there were 311 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.1 persons per household. There were 122 households that consist of only one person and 22 households with five or more people. , a total of 297 apartments (52.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 194 apartments (34.3%) were seasonally occupied and 75 apartments (13.3%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.99%. The historical population  is given in the following chart: Sights. The entire Saint-Gingolph area is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. Politics. In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 33.27% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (22.46%), the SVP (21.72%) and the SP (15.99%). In the federal election, a total of 340 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 55.7%. Economy. , Saint-Gingolph had an unemployment rate of 5.3%. , there were 2 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 2 businesses involved  in this sector. 27 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 11 businesses in this sector. 109 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 32 businesses in this sector. There were 298 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.6% of the workforce. , there were 108 workers who commuted into the municipality and 201 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 32.4% of the workforce coming into Saint-Gingolph are coming  from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 8.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 70.5% used a private car. Religion. From the , 476 or 61.6% were Roman Catholic, while 85 or 11.0% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 4 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.52% of the population), and there were 9 individuals (or about 1.16% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 (or about 0.78% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 8 individuals who were Buddhist. 69 (or about 8.93 % of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 120 individuals (or about 15.52% of the population) did not answer the question. Education. In Saint-Gingolph about 251 or (32.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 96 or (12.4%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule"). Of the 96 who completed tertiary schooling, 49.0% were Swiss men, 22.9% were Swiss women, 13.5% were non-Swiss men and 14.6% were non-Swiss women. , there was one student in Saint-Gingolph who came from another municipality, while 54 residents attended schools  outside the municipality. Saint-Gingolph is home to the "Bibliothèque communale" library. The library has () 5,540 books or other media, and loaned out 1,800 items in the same year. It was open a total of 104 days with average of 8 hours per week during that year.