Mervelier is a

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

Delémont Delémont (; ; , ) is the capital of the Swiss canton of Jura. The city has approximately 12,000 inhabitants . History The area of the municipality was already settled in the middle Bronze Age. Fifteen urn burials have been discovered in the ...

in the canton of Jura 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 ...

History

Mervelier is first mentioned about 1184 as ''Morswilre''. The municipality was formerly known by its German name ''Morschwil'', however, that name is no longer used.

Geography

Mervelier has an area of . Of this area, or 43.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 51.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.3%. Out of the forested land, 50.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 14.0% is used for growing crops and 10.5% is pastures, while 1.6% is used for orchards or vine crops and 17.7% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Delemont district, in the Val Terbi at the foot of the Schelten Pass along the Scheulte river. The municipalities of Corban, Courchapoix,

Courroux Courroux (, ; ) is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Delémont (district), Delémont in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Jura (canton), Jura in Switzerland. History Courroux is first mentioned in 1146 under its ...

, Mervelier, Montsevelier,

Vermes Vermes ("vermin/vermes") is an obsolete taxon used by Carl Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for non-arthropod invertebrate animals. Linnaeus In Linnaeus's ''Systema Naturae'', the Vermes had the rank of class (biology), class, occupying th ...

and Vicques are considering a merger on at a date in the future into the new municipality of Val Terbi.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 21 December 2011

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, St. Rémy depicted in bishops garb, mitred, haloed and holding a crosier Or.''

Demographics

Mervelier has a population () of . , 1.9% 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 -6.3%. Migration accounted for -2.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.5%.
accessed 22-December-2011 Most of the population () speaks French (543 or 92.8%) as their first language,

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 ...

is the second most common (31 or 5.3%) and English is the third (3 or 0.5%). There is 1 person who speaks

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 population was 48.4% male and 51.6% female. The population was made up of 267 Swiss men (47.5% of the population) and 5 (0.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 285 Swiss women (50.7%) and 5 (0.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 303 or about 51.8% were born in Mervelier and lived there in 2000. There were 152 or 26.0% who were born in the same canton, while 84 or 14.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 33 or 5.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 31.6% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 52.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.2%. , there were 248 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 293 married individuals, 33 widows or widowers and 11 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 202 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.9 persons per household. There were 42 households that consist of only one person and 40 households with five or more people. , a total of 199 apartments (91.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 15 apartments (6.9%) were seasonally occupied and 3 apartments (1.4%) 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 2.16%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:1020 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:590 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:100 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:20 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1818 from:start till:377 text:"377" bar:1850 from:start till:490 text:"490" bar:1860 from:start till:483 text:"483" bar:1870 from:start till:494 text:"494" bar:1880 from:start till:499 text:"499" bar:1888 from:start till:462 text:"462" bar:1900 from:start till:433 text:"433" bar:1910 from:start till:452 text:"452" bar:1920 from:start till:462 text:"462" bar:1930 from:start till:486 text:"486" bar:1941 from:start till:504 text:"504" bar:1950 from:start till:539 text:"539" bar:1960 from:start till:548 text:"548" bar:1970 from:start till:527 text:"527" bar:1980 from:start till:453 text:"453" bar:1990 from:start till:494 text:"494" bar:2000 from:start till:585 text:"585"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SPS which received 43.57% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.05%), the CVP (22.05%) and the CSP (8.14%). In the federal election, a total of 192 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 44.1%.

Economy

, Mervelier had an unemployment rate of 3.1%. , there were 26 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 13 businesses involved in this sector. 48 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 8 businesses in this sector. 23 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 12 businesses in this sector. There were 253 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.5% 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 75. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 19, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 41 of which 25 or (61.0%) were in manufacturing and 16 (39.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 15. In the tertiary sector; 4 or 26.7% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 5 or 33.3% were in the movement and storage of goods, 2 or 13.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 20.0% were in education. , there were 20 workers who commuted into the municipality and 197 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 9.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 13.8% used public transportation to get to work, and 70% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 472 or 80.7% 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 54 or 9.2% 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 2 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.34% of the population), and there were 3 individuals (or about 0.51% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. 39 (or about 6.67% 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 16 individuals (or about 2.74% of the population) did not answer the question.

Weather

Mervelier has an average of 144.8 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 June during which time Mervelier receives an average of of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 13.1 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 14.7, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is February with an average of of precipitation over 12 days., the Mervelier weather station elevation is 556 meters above sea level.

Education

In Mervelier about 203 or (34.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 35 or (6.0%) 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 35 who completed tertiary schooling, 80.0% were Swiss men, 17.1% were Swiss women. The Canton of Jura school system provides two 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 followed by some form of Tertiary school or they may enter an

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 ...

. During the 2009-10 school year, there were a total of 34 students attending 3 classes in Mervelier. There were no kindergarten classes in the municipality.Effectifs de l'école enfantine 2009-2010
accessed 19 December 2011 The municipality had 2.5 primary classes and 34 students.
accessed 19 December 2011 There are only nine Secondary schools in the canton, so all the students from Mervelier attend their secondary school in another municipality. , there were 4 students in Mervelier who came from another municipality, while 49 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Jura