Goms () is a district of the canton of

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

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 ...

. It covers a larger area than its geographical counterpart, the geographical region of Goms, namely the upper most part of the Rhône valley between its source and

Brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

. It has a population of (as of ).

Municipalities

It comprises the following

municipalities 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' ...

Coat of arms and flag

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 and flag is ''Per fess Gules and Argent, two Crosses pattee counterchanged.''

Demographics

Goms has a population () of . Most of the population () speaks

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(4,401 or 92.8%) as their first language,

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

is the second most common (179 or 3.8%) and

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

is the third (41 or 0.9%). There are 29 people who speak French, 12 people who speak

Italian 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 gender distribution of the population was 51.0% male and 49.0% female. The population was made up of 2,113 Swiss men (44.8% of the population) and 292 (6.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 2,036 Swiss women (43.2%) and 274 (5.8%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the district 2,454 or about 51.7% were born in Goms and lived there in 2000. There were 1,179 or 24.9% who were born in the same canton, while 488 or 10.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 529 or 11.2% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 1,896 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 2,434 married individuals, 309 widows or widowers and 104 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 There were 609 households that consist of only one person and 145 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 1,969 households that answered this question, 30.9% were households made up of just one person and there were 23 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 520 married couples without children, 638 married couples with children There were 76 single parents with a child or children. There were 45 households that were made up of unrelated people and 58 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:4800 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:200 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1850 from:start till:4102 text:"4,102" bar:1860 from:start till:4449 text:"4,449" bar:1870 from:start till:4409 text:"4,409" bar:1880 from:start till:4445 text:"4,445" bar:1888 from:start till:4192 text:"4,192" bar:1900 from:start till:4204 text:"4,204" bar:1910 from:start till:4145 text:"4,145" bar:1920 from:start till:4037 text:"4,037" bar:1930 from:start till:4215 text:"4,215" bar:1941 from:start till:4518 text:"4,518" bar:1950 from:start till:4489 text:"4,489" bar:1960 from:start till:4457 text:"4,457" bar:1970 from:start till:4090 text:"4,090" bar:1980 from:start till:4294 text:"4,294" bar:1990 from:start till:4523 text:"4,523" bar:2000 from:start till:4743 text:"4,743"

Mergers and name changes

On 1 October 2000 the former municipalities of Biel (VS), Ritzingen and Selkingen merged to form the new municipality of Grafschaft, and the Kommunanz of Gluringen/Ritzingen changed its name to Kommunanz Gluringen/Grafschaft. On 1 October 2004 the former municipalities of Geschinen and Münster (VS) merged to form the new municipality of Münster-Geschinen, the former municipalities of Gluringen and Reckingen (VS) merged to form the new municipality of Reckingen-Gluringen and the former municipalities of Steinhaus, Ausserbinn and Mühlebach merged into the municipality of Ernen. On 1 January 2009 the former municipalities of Ulrichen, Obergesteln and Oberwald merged to form the new municipality of Obergoms.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
accessed 4 April 2011 On 1 January 2017 the former municipalities of Blitzingen,

Grafschaft A was originally the name given to the administrative area in the Holy Roman Empire over which a count, or , presided as judge. It is often, therefore, translated as 'county'. The term has survived as a placename in German-speaking countries, for ...

, Münster-Geschinen, Niederwald and Reckingen-Gluringen merged to form the new municipality of Goms.

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 62.28% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (17.54%), the SP (12.83%) and the FDP (4.76%). In the federal election, a total of 2,014 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 55.3%. In the 2009 Conseil d'État/Staatsrat election a total of 1,833 votes were cast, of which 169 or about 9.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 52.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 2,005 votes were cast, of which 60 or about 3.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 56.1%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.Ständeratswahl 2007
accessed 24 August 2011

Religion

From the , 4,029 or 84.9% 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 243 or 5.1% 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 160 members of an Orthodox church (or about 3.37% of the population), and there were 17 individuals (or about 0.36% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 86 (or about 1.81% 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. 110 (or about 2.32% of the population) belonged to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

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 106 individuals (or about 2.23% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Goms about 1,712 or (36.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 346 or (7.3%) 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 346 who completed tertiary schooling, 71.4% were Swiss men, 12.7% were Swiss women, 9.2% were non-Swiss men and 6.6% were non-Swiss women.

Sports

Goms cross-country skiing trail: Goms is popular for

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing whereby skiers traverse snow-covered terrain without use of ski lifts or other assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a m ...

and offers a network of cross-country skiing trails of around 100 km.

References

{{Coord, 46.45, N, 8.3, E, source:nowiki_region:CH_scale:200000, display=title Districts of Valais