Boudevilliers is a former
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
in the district of
Val-de-Ruz in the
canton of
Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...
in
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. The municipalities of Boudevilliers,
Cernier,
Chézard-Saint-Martin,
Coffrane,
Dombresson,
Engollon,
Fenin-Vilars-Saules,
Fontainemelon,
Fontaines,
Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane,
Les Hauts-Geneveys,
Montmollin,
Le Pâquier,
Savagnier and
Villiers merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of
Val-de-Ruz.
[Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz]
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 2 January 2013
History
Boudevilliers is first mentioned in 1195 as ''Boudeviler''.
[
]
Geography
Boudevilliers had an area, , of . Of this area, or 61.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 6.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010[
The former municipality is located in the Val-de-Ruz district, at the intersection of the ]Neuchâtel
Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...
to La Chaux-de-Fonds
La Chaux-de-Fonds (; archaic ) is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura Mountains at an altitude of 992 metres, a few kilometres south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne, Biel/Bienne, and Fribourg, ...
and the Rochefort to Saint-Imier roads. It consists of the village of Boudevilliers and the hamlets
A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...
of Malvilliers, La Jonchère and Landeyeux.
Coat of arms
The 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 an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...
of the municipal coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...
is ''Gules, a Cross bottony Or.''
Demographics
Boudevilliers had a population () of 754.[Swiss Federal Statistics Office – STAT-TAB](_blank)
''Ständige und Nichtständige Wohnbevölkerung nach Region, Geschlecht, Nationalität und Alter'' accessed 3 October 2012 , 12.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals.
accessed 19 June 2010
accessed 27-October-2011Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
.[
, the population was 48.5% male and 51.5% female. The population was made up of 337 Swiss men (42.9% of the population) and 44 (5.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 368 Swiss women (46.8%) and 37 (4.7%) non-Swiss women.][Canton of Neuchatel Statistics](_blank)
''République et canton de Neuchâtel - Recensement annuel de la population'' accessed 13 October 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 159 or about 22.1% were born in Boudevilliers and lived there in 2000. There were 300 or 41.8% who were born in the same canton, while 141 or 19.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 99 or 13.8% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 57% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.6%.][
, there were 301 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 329 married individuals, 59 widows or widowers and 29 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 252 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household.[ There were 64 households that consist of only one person and 23 households with five or more people. , a total of 232 apartments (89.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 17 apartments (6.6%) were seasonally occupied and 10 apartments (3.9%) were empty.][Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen]
accessed 28 January 2011 The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.68%.[
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Sights
Boudevilliers is known for its ancient chateau which dates from the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 25.43% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (19.97%), the SVP (19.9%) and the LPS Party (13.99%). In the federal election, a total of 276 votes were cast, and the voter turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...
was 55.9%.
Economy
, Boudevilliers had an unemployment rate of 3.1%. , there were 43 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 17 businesses involved in this sector. 62 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 10 businesses in this sector. 404 people were employed in the tertiary sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...
, with 32 businesses in this sector.[ There were 372 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.5% of the workforce.
the total number of ]full-time equivalent
Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit of measurement that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often use ...
jobs was 413. 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 58 of which 6 or (10.3%) were in manufacturing and 53 (91.4%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 327. In the tertiary sector; 33 or 10.1% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 20 or 6.1% were in a hotel or restaurant, 6 or 1.8% were in the information industry, 2 or 0.6% were the insurance or financial industry, 9 or 2.8% were technical professionals or scientists, 1 was in education and 216 or 66.1% were in health care.
, there were 326 workers who commuted into the municipality and 243 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.3 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 3.1% of the workforce coming into Boudevilliers are coming from outside Switzerland.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 7% used public transportation to get to work, and 65.6% used a private car.[
]
Religion
From the , 153 or 21.3% were Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
, while 350 or 48.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...
. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.42% of the population), and there were 20 individuals (or about 2.79% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 15 (or about 2.09% of the population) who were Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
ic. There were 2 individuals who were Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
. 158 (or about 22.01% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
, and 27 individuals (or about 3.76% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Weather
Boudevilliers has an average of 134.1 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives of precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...
. The wettest month is December during which time Boudevilliers receives an average of of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 12.9 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 13.1, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is April with an average of of precipitation over 11.2 days.[, the Boudevilliers weather station elevation is 749 meters above sea level.]
Education
In Boudevilliers about 277 or (38.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 112 or (15.6%) have completed additional higher education (either university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
or a ''Fachhochschule
A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...
''). Of the 112 who completed tertiary schooling, 49.1% were Swiss men, 30.4% were Swiss women, 12.5% were non-Swiss men and 8.0% were non-Swiss women.[
In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory ]kindergarten
Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...
, followed by five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. During the 2010-11 school year, there were 0.5 kindergarten classes with a total of 10 students in Boudevilliers. In the same year, there was one primary class with a total of 20 students.Statistical Department of the Canton of Neuchâtel
Mémento de l'année scolaire 2010/2011 accessed 17 October 2011
, there were 25 students in Boudevilliers who came from another municipality, while 99 residents attended schools outside the municipality.[
]
References
{{Authority control
Former municipalities of the canton of Neuchâtel