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
Sursee
Sursee is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Sursee (Amt), Sursee in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Lucerne (canton), Lucerne, Switzerland. Sursee is located at the northern end of Lake Sempach, not far from wh ...
Lucerne
Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...
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
It has retained some traces of its medieval appearance, especially the main gateway, beneath a watch tower, and reached by a bridge over the old moat. About half an hour distant to the north-east, on the hillside, is the site of the famous
Battle of Sempach
The Battle of Sempach was fought on 9 July 1386, between Leopold III, Duke of Austria and the Old Swiss Confederacy. The battle was a decisive Swiss victory in which Duke Leopold and numerous Austrian nobles died. The victory helped turn the lo ...
(9 July 1386), in which the Swiss defeated the Austrians, whose leader, Duke Leopold, lost his life. The legendary deed of Arnold of Winkelried is associated with this victory. The spot is now marked by an ancient and picturesque Battle Chapel (restored in 1886) and by a modern monument to Winkelried.
A few years later, in 1393, the so-called '' Sempacherbrief'' was signed between the '' Acht Orte'' (the original eight Swiss cantons), plus the associated
Canton of Solothurn
The canton of Solothurn or canton of Soleure (; ; ; ) is a Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Switzerland. It is located in the northwest of Switzerland. The capital is Solothurn.
History
The village of ''Salodurum'' was founded in the time of t ...
. It was the first document signed by all eight (plus Solothurn), but it also defined that none of them was to unilaterally start a war without the consent of all the others.
Some miles north of Sempach is the quaint village of
Beromünster
Beromünster is a municipality in the district of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland. On 1 January 2004 the former municipality of Schwarzenbach merged into the municipality of Beromünster.Gering who introduced printing into France.
Sempach is the site of the Sempach Bird Observatory.
Geography
Sempach has an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 63.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 14.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 20.7% is settled (buildings or roads) and 1.3% is unproductive land. Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by .Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Regional portraits accessed 27 October 2016
, 14.53% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 63.8% is used for farming or pastures, while 4.92% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 6.37% is covered with buildings, 0.89% is industrial, 0.22% is classed as special developments, 1.23% is parks or greenbelts and 7.6% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, 0.34% is unproductive standing water (ponds or lakes), and 0.11% is other unproductive land. accessed 12 August 2009
It is built above the eastern shore of
Lake Sempach
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Lake Sempach (German: ''Sempachersee'') is a lake in the canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. Its area is about and its maximum depth is .
A island named ''Gamma Insel'' is located east of Sursee.
In the 17th century the lake counted wit ...
, and about by road north of the Sempach railway station ( N.W. of
Lucerne
Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...
) on the main line between
Lucerne
Lucerne ( ) or Luzern ()Other languages: ; ; ; . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), di ...
and
Olten
Olten (; High Alemannic: ''Oute'') is a town in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland and capital of the district of the same name.
Olten grew into a town during the Middle Ages at the location of a bridge over the Aare. After a period of de ...
.
Steinibühlweiher
__NOTOC__
Steinibühlweiher is a pond at Sempach in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. The artificial reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydro ...
is located above the town.
Demographics
Sempach has a population () of . , 7.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 4 years (2010–2014) the population has changed at a rate of 3.52%. The
birth rate
Birth rate, also known as natality, is the total number of live childbirth, human births per 1,000 population for a given period divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registr ...
in the municipality, in 2014, was 12.3, while the
death rate
Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...
was 5.0 per thousand residents.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.6% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) are 61.0% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 14.4%. In 2015 there were 1,896 single residents, 1,904 people who were married or in a civil partnership, 149 widows or widowers and 210 divorced residents.
In 2014 there were 1,598 private households in Sempach with an average household size of 2.58persons. Of the 635 inhabited buildings in the municipality, in 2000, about 58.0% were single family homes and 18.3% were multiple family buildings. Additionally, about 14.0% of the buildings were built before 1919, while 21.4% were built between 1991 and 2000.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Thema 09 - Bau- und Wohnungswesen accessed 5 May 2016 In 2013 the rate of construction of new housing units per 1000 residents was 5.78. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.64%. there were 615 inhabited buildings in the municipality, of which 474 were built only as housing, and 141 were
mixed use
Mixed use is a type of Real estate development, urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple Land use, uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into ...
buildings. There were 358 single family homes, 44 double family homes, and 72 multi-family homes in the municipality. Most homes were either two (248) or three (163) story structures. There were only 16 single story buildings and 47 four or more story buildings.
Most of the population () speaks German (93.8%), with Albanian being second most common (2.2%) and Spanish being third (0.7%).
, there were a total of 1,878 people employed in the municipality. Of these, a total of 137 people worked in 32 businesses in the primary economic sector. 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 ...
employed 650 workers in 55 separate businesses. Finally, 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 ...
provided 1,091 jobs in 238 businesses. In 2014 a total of 5.8% of the population received social assistance.
Politics
In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the CVP with 30.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (20.9%), the FDP (20.5%) and the SP (11.3%). In the federal election, a total of 1,800 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 60.7%.
Crime
In 2014 the crime rate, of the over 200 crimes listed in the
Swiss Criminal Code
The Swiss Criminal Code (SR/RS 311, , , , ) is a portion of the third part (SR/RS 3) of the Swiss law, internal Swiss law ("Private law - Administration of civil justice - Enforcement") that regulates the criminal code in Switzerland. The orig ...
(running from murder, robbery and assault to accepting bribes and election fraud), in Sempach was 42.4 per thousand residents. This rate is only 73.5% of the cantonal rate and 65.6% of the average rate in the entire country. During the same period, the rate of drug crimes was 3.1 per thousand residents, which is about one-third the national rate. The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 0.5 per thousand residents, or about 10% of the national rate.Statistical Atlas of Switzerland accessed 5 April 2016
Education
In Sempach about 81.3% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university 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 ...
'').
Religion
the religious membership of Sempach was as follows: 2,678 (76.9%) were Roman Catholic and 485 (13.9%) were Protestant, with an additional 22 (0.63%) that were of some other Christian faith. There were 86 individuals (2.47% of the population) who are Muslim. Of the rest, there were 15 (0.43%) individuals who belonged to another religion (not listed), 123 (3.53%) who did not belong to any organized religion, and 74 (2.12%) who did not answer the question.
Weather
Sempach has an average of 133.9 days of rain 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 Sempach receives an average of of precipitation. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 13.2 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 13.6, but with only of precipitation. The driest month of the year is October with an average of of precipitation over 13.2 days., the weather station elevation is 510 meters above sea level.
References
*
**See Th. von Liebenau. ''Die Schlacht bei Sempach'' (Lucerne, 1886).
External links
*http://www.sempach.ch
* Statistical data is available from https://web.archive.org/web/20040823004448/http://www.lu.ch/download/fd/afs/pdf/jbkt/profile/gp_1102.pdf
{{Authority control
Cities in SwitzerlandMunicipalities of the canton of Lucerne