Pierrafortscha (; , locally ) 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

Sarine Sarine may refer to: * Sarine District, one of Switzerland's seven districts *Saane/Sarine, a Swiss river * Sarine Voltage, an American musician *Sarine, Lebanon Saraaine El Tahta () (also spelled Sareen, Serraine El Tahta, Saraain El Taht ...

in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

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.

History

Pierrafortscha (Fribourg dialect for ''Pierre Forchue'', forked rock) is first mentioned in 1267 as ''Pierraforchia''. In 1277 it was mentioned as ''Bevrechie''. The municipality was formerly known by its German name ''Perfetschied'', however, that name is no longer used.

Geography

Pierrafortscha has an area, , of . Of this area, or 69.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 22.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% 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 3.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.6%. Out of the forested land, 20.0% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 49.0% is used for growing crops and 20.0% is pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.4% is in lakes and 0.4% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located in the Sarine district, on the language border between the

Saane/Sarine The Sarine (; ) or Saane () is a major river of Switzerland.6th longest, 7th largest basin, see List of rivers of Switzerland It is long and has a drainage area of . It is a tributary of the Aare. The Sarine rises in the Bernese Alps, near Sa ...

river and the Gérine. It consists of eight

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 ...

including Pierrafortscha, Villars-sur-Marly, Granges-sur-Marly and La Schürra.

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 ''Per fess Azure and Or overall a Rough Stone proper.''

Demographics

Pierrafortscha has a population () of . , 9.9% 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 8.6%. Migration accounted for 3.6%, while births and deaths accounted for 3.6%.
accessed 11-December-2011 Most of the population () speaks French (96 or 70.6%) as their first language, German is the second most common (38 or 27.9%) and Italian is the third (2 or 1.5%). , the population was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. The population was made up of 67 Swiss men (45.3% of the population) and 6 (4.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 66 Swiss women (44.6%) and 9 (6.1%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Fribourg Statistics
accessed 3 November 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 47 or about 34.6% were born in Pierrafortscha and lived there in 2000. There were 51 or 37.5% who were born in the same canton, while 24 or 17.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9 or 6.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.4%. , there were 57 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 65 married individuals, 7 widows or widowers and 7 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 56 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 16 households that consist of only one person and 4 households with five or more people. , a total of 53 apartments (96.4% of the total) were permanently occupied and 2 apartments (3.6%) were empty.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:1020 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:260 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1811 from:start till:146 text:"146" bar:1850 from:start till:187 text:"187" bar:1860 from:start till:200 text:"200" bar:1870 from:start till:194 text:"194" bar:1880 from:start till:192 text:"192" bar:1888 from:start till:224 text:"224" bar:1900 from:start till:185 text:"185" bar:1910 from:start till:218 text:"218" bar:1920 from:start till:214 text:"214" bar:1930 from:start till:260 text:"260" bar:1941 from:start till:231 text:"231" bar:1950 from:start till:242 text:"242" bar:1960 from:start till:182 text:"182" bar:1970 from:start till:184 text:"184" bar:1980 from:start till:162 text:"162" bar:1990 from:start till:154 text:"154" bar:2000 from:start till:136 text:"136"

Heritage sites of national significance

The Chalet de Diesbach and the granary of Château d’En-Haut are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The hamlets of Granges-sur-Marly and Villars-sur-Marly are part of the

Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites The Federal Inventory of Heritage Sites (ISOS) is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. Sites of national importance Types The types are based on t ...

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 23.0% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (22.8%), the SPS (18.1%) and the FDP (17.6%).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 (26.1% in 2007 vs 23.0% in 2011). The CVP moved from third in 2007 (with 22.8%) to second in 2011, the SPS moved from fourth in 2007 (with 13.9%) to third and the FDP moved from second in 2007 (with 25.3%) to fourth. A total of 60 votes were cast in this election.

Economy

, Pierrafortscha had an unemployment rate of 1.5%. , there were 36 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 9 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 was 1 business in this sector. 5 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 3 businesses in this sector. There were 78 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 35.9% 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 41. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 28, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 8, all of which were in manufacturing. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 5, of which 1 was a technical professional or scientist. , there were 7 workers who commuted into the municipality and 50 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 7.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 2.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 60.3% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 98 or 72.1% 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 31 or 22.8% 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 ...

. 4 (or about 2.94% 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 3 individuals (or about 2.21% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Pierrafortscha about 47 or (34.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

, and 24 or (17.6%) 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 24 who completed tertiary schooling, 58.3% were Swiss men, 29.2% 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.Chart of the education system in Canton Fribourg
During the 2010-11 school year, there were no students attending school in Pierrafortscha, but a total of 21 students attended school in other municipalities. Of these students, none of them were in kindergarten, 16 were in a primary school, 3 were in a mandatory secondary school, were in an upper secondary school and 2 were in a vocational secondary program. There were no tertiary students from this municipality. , there were 2 students in Pierrafortscha who came from another municipality, while 21 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Fribourg Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Fribourg