The district of Conthey (french: District de Conthey, german: Bezirk Gundis) is an administrative district in the
canton of Valais
Valais ( , , ; frp, Valês; german: Wallis ), more formally the Canton of Valais,; german: Kanton Wallis; in other official Swiss languages outside Valais: it, (Canton) Vallese ; rm, (Chantun) Vallais. is one of the 26 cantons forming the S ...
,
Switzerland. It has a population of (as of ).
The Conthey district was created as the 13th district of the Valais as the canton joined the
restored Swiss Confederacy
The periods of Restoration and Regeneration in Swiss history lasted from 1814 to 1847. "Restoration" is the period of 1814 to 1830, the restoration of the ''Ancien Régime'' (federalism), reverting the changes imposed by Napoleon Bonaparte on ...
in 1815, accounting for the thirteen stars in the
coat of arms of Valais.
Municipalities
It contains the following municipalities:
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 the appropriate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visua ...
of the municipal
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...
is ''Argent, two Lions rampant combatant Gules holding together a Sword Or inverted.''
Demographics
Conthey has a population () of . Most of the population () speaks
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
(18,197 or 90.6%) as their first language,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
is the second most common (533 or 2.7%) and
Portuguese is the third (485 or 2.4%). There are 266 people who speak
Italian and 4 people who speak
Romansh.
[
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was made up of 9,234 Swiss men (39.3% of the population) and 2,426 (10.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 9,769 Swiss women (41.6%) and 2,066 (8.8%) non-Swiss women.][Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31.12.2009.xls]
accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the district 9,952 or about 49.5% were born in Conthey and lived there in 2000. There were 4,710 or 23.4% who were born in the same canton, while 1,848 or 9.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2,845 or 14.2% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, there were 7,876 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 10,191 married individuals, 1,227 widows or widowers and 800 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
There were 2,070 households that consist of only one person and 565 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 7,937 households that answered this question, 26.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 113 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,100 married couples without children, 2,908 married couples with children There were 456 single parents with a child or children. There were 86 households that were made up of unrelated people and 204 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:21000
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:4000 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:800 start:0
PlotData=
color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1850 from:start till:6043 text:"6,043"
bar:1860 from:start till:6786 text:"6,786"
bar:1870 from:start till:7356 text:"7,356"
bar:1880 from:start till:7873 text:"7,873"
bar:1888 from:start till:8363 text:"8,363"
bar:1900 from:start till:8928 text:"8,928"
bar:1910 from:start till:9357 text:"9,357"
bar:1920 from:start till:9855 text:"9,855"
bar:1930 from:start till:10295 text:"10,295"
bar:1941 from:start till:11202 text:"11,202"
bar:1950 from:start till:11740 text:"11,740"
bar:1960 from:start till:12197 text:"12,197"
bar:1970 from:start till:13714 text:"13,714"
bar:1980 from:start till:15201 text:"15,201"
bar:1990 from:start till:18485 text:"18,485"
bar:2000 from:start till:20094 text:"20,094"
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 36.42% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (27.87%), the SP (14.67%) and the SVP (12.75%). In the federal election, a total of 9,538 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 can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
was 63.0%.
In the 2009 Conseil d'État/Staatsrat election a total of 8,362 votes were cast, of which 552 or about 6.6% were invalid. The voter participation was 55.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%.
In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 9,418 votes were cast, of which 609 or about 6.5% were invalid. The voter participation was 62.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.Ständeratswahl 2007
accessed 24 August 2011
Religion
From the , 16,802 or 83.6% were Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
, while 856 or 4.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church
The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), (EKS); french: Église évangélique réformée de Suisse (EERS); it, Chiesa evangelica riformata in Svizzera (CERiS); rm, Baselgia evangelica refurmada da la Svizra (BRRS) formerly named Federation o ...
. Of the rest of the population, there were 96 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.48% of the population), there were 16 individuals (or about 0.08% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 207 individuals (or about 1.03% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 individuals (or about 0.03% of the population) who were Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, and 506 (or about 2.52% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 27 individuals who were Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
, 16 individuals who were Hindu and 20 individuals who belonged to another church. 709 (or about 3.53% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficie ...
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 934 individuals (or about 4.65% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Conthey about 6,685 or (33.3%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education
Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final ph ...
, and 1,858 or (9.2%) have completed additional higher education (either University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
or a ''Fachhochschule
A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied ar ...
''). Of the 1,858 who completed tertiary schooling, 63.9% were Swiss men, 27.3% were Swiss women, 5.4% were non-Swiss men and 3.4% were non-Swiss women.[
]
References
External links
*
{{Coord, 46, 12, 17, N, 7, 16, 42, E, type:city_source:frwiki, display=title
Districts of Valais