Gempenach (former
French name: Champagny; ) 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
See in the
canton of
Fribourg
or is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Canton of Fribourg, Fribourg and district of Sarine (district), La Sarine. Located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss Plateau, it is a major economic, adminis ...
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 ...
. On 1 January 2022 the former municipalities of
Galmiz, Gempenach and
Clavaleyres (
Canton of Bern
The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...
) merged into the municipality of
Murten
Murten (German language, German, ) or Morat (French language, French, ; ) is a bilingual Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality and a city in the See (district of Fribourg), See district of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Fribourg (can ...
.
History
Gempenach is first mentioned under its French name in 1340 as ''Champagnie''. In 1408 it was mentioned as ''Gempenach'' followed in 1409 as ''Gempernach''.
[
]
Geography
Gempenach has an area, , of . Of this area, or 74.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 18.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.9% is settled (buildings or roads).[Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics]
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.0%. Out of the forested land, 17.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 55.6% is used for growing crops and 12.4% is pastures, while 5.9% is used for orchards or vine crops.[
The municipality is located in the See/Lac district, about north-east of ]Murten
Murten (German language, German, ) or Morat (French language, French, ; ) is a bilingual Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality and a city in the See (district of Fribourg), See district of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Fribourg (can ...
along the border with the Canton of Bern
The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...
. It consists of the linear village
In mathematics, the term ''linear'' is used in two distinct senses for two different properties:
* linearity of a '' function'' (or '' mapping'');
* linearity of a ''polynomial''.
An example of a linear function is the function defined by f(x)= ...
of Gempenach.
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 House Argent to its sinister a pine tree Vert trunked proper and issuant from sinister a Bush of the Third all issuant from a Base of the last.''
Demographics
Gempenach has a population () of . , 9.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Superweb database - Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008]
accessed 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 5.8%. Migration accounted for 11.6%, while births and deaths accounted for -1.1%.
accessed 14-December-2011German
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 ...
(274 or 97.5%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (4 or 1.4%) and French is the third (2 or 0.7%).[
, the population was 50.5% male and 49.5% female. The population was made up of 129 Swiss men (44.3% of the population) and 18 (6.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 135 Swiss women (46.4%) and 9 (3.1%) non-Swiss women.][Canton of Fribourg Statistics]
accessed 3 November 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 87 or about 31.0% were born in Gempenach and lived there in 2000. There were 38 or 13.5% who were born in the same canton, while 134 or 47.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 13 or 4.6% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 31% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 59.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 9.6%.][
, there were 121 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 141 married individuals, 10 widows or widowers and 9 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 108 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household.[ There were 29 households that consist of only one person and 10 households with five or more people. , a total of 105 apartments (92.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 6 apartments (5.3%) were seasonally occupied and 2 apartments (1.8%) 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 0.83%.[
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 53.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (10.5%), the BDP/PBD (8.1%) and the FDP (7.5%).[Canton of Fribourg National Council Election of 23 October 2011 Statistics]
accessed 3 November 2011
The SVP received about the same percentage of the vote as they did in the 2007 Federal election (55.9% in 2007 vs 53.9% in 2011). The SPS moved from third in 2007 (with 9.1%) to second in 2011, the BDP moved from below fourth place in 2007 to third and the FDP moved from second in 2007 (with 14.1%) to fourth. A total of 97 votes were cast in this election.
Economy
, Gempenach had an unemployment rate of 1.4%. , there were 48 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 21 people were employed in the secondary sector
In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in constructi ...
and there were 2 businesses in this sector. 41 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 11 businesses in this sector.[ There were 150 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.0% 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 92. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 39, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 21 of which 1 was in manufacturing and 20 (95.2%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 32. In the tertiary sector; 6 or 18.8% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 8 or 25.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 10 or 31.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 9.4% were in the information industry, 4 or 12.5% were in education.
, there were 18 workers who commuted into the municipality and 98 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 5.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 8.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 62% used a private car.[
]
Religion
From the , 26 or 9.3% 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 229 or 81.5% 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 12 individuals (or about 4.27% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. 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 ...
. 14 (or about 4.98% 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 ...
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 4 individuals (or about 1.42% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Gempenach about 97 or (34.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 34 or (12.1%) 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 34 who completed tertiary schooling, 82.4% were Swiss men, 14.7% were Swiss women.[
The Canton of Fribourg school system provides one year of non-obligatory ]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 six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend a three or four year optional upper Secondary school. The upper Secondary school is divided into gymnasium (university preparatory) and vocational programs. After they finish the upper Secondary program, students may choose to attend a Tertiary school or continue their apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...
.Chart of the education system in Canton Fribourg
During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 44 students attending 2 classes in Gempenach. A total of 40 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. The municipality had 2 primary classes and 44 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 19 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 3 upper Secondary students and 3 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes. who attended classes in another municipality.[
]
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Former municipalities of the canton of Fribourg