Vaulruz (; ) 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 Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg 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

Vaulruz is first mentioned in 1115 as ''Valle Rodulphi''. It was first mentioned at Vaulruz in 1303.

Geography

Vaulruz has an area, , of . Of this area, or 64.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 26.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.9%. Out of the forested land, 24.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 10.0% is used for growing crops and 48.8% is pastures and 4.9% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Gruyère district, on the Bulle- Châtel-Saint-Denis road. It consists of the village of Vaulruz and a number of

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 ...

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 Barrulet wavy Argent abased overall three Pine Trees Vert trunked proper issuant from Coupeaux of the third.''

Demographics

Vaulruz has a population () of . , 7.3% 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 15.4%. Migration accounted for 5.7%, while births and deaths accounted for 7.5%.
accessed 30-November-2011 Most of the population () speaks French (843 or 96.3%) as their first language, German is the second most common (21 or 2.4%) and Portuguese is the third (7 or 0.8%). There is 1 person who speaks Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh. , the population was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The population was made up of 436 Swiss men (44.5% of the population) and 43 (4.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 462 Swiss women (47.1%) and 39 (4.0%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Fribourg Statistics
accessed 3 November 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 396 or about 45.3% were born in Vaulruz and lived there in 2000. There were 315 or 36.0% who were born in the same canton, while 95 or 10.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 60 or 6.9% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 27.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 61.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 10.7%. , there were 405 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 413 married individuals, 39 widows or widowers and 18 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 322 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.7 persons per household. There were 87 households that consist of only one person and 46 households with five or more people. , a total of 309 apartments (88.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 25 apartments (7.2%) were seasonally occupied and 14 apartments (4.0%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 9.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.5%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:1140 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:880 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:200 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:40 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:42 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1355 from:start till:340 bar:1355 at:350 fontsize:S text: "85 Houses" shift:(7,5) bar:1468 from:start till:136 bar:1468 at:146 fontsize:S text: "34 Houses" shift:(7,5) bar:1811 from:start till:453 text:"453" bar:1850 from:start till:496 text:"496" bar:1860 from:start till:564 text:"564" bar:1870 from:start till:675 text:"675" bar:1880 from:start till:715 text:"715" bar:1888 from:start till:715 text:"715" bar:1900 from:start till:721 text:"721" bar:1910 from:start till:743 text:"743" bar:1920 from:start till:748 text:"748" bar:1930 from:start till:813 text:"813" bar:1941 from:start till:760 text:"760" bar:1950 from:start till:799 text:"799" bar:1960 from:start till:689 text:"689" bar:1970 from:start till:647 text:"647" bar:1980 from:start till:699 text:"699" bar:1990 from:start till:784 text:"784" bar:2000 from:start till:875 text:"875"

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 28.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (22.6%), the SP (19.0%) and the FDP (17.7%).Canton of Fribourg National Council Election of 23 October 2011 Statistics
accessed 3 November 2011 The CVP lost about 6.7% of the vote when compared to the 2007 Federal election (34.8% in 2007 vs 28.1% in 2011). The SVP retained about the same popularity (23.9% in 2007), the SPS moved from fourth in 2007 (with 14.7%) to third and the FDP moved from third in 2007 (with 15.2%) to fourth. A total of 345 votes were cast in this election, of which 3 or 0.9% were invalid.

Economy

, Vaulruz had an unemployment rate of 1.6%. , there were 88 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 32 businesses involved in this sector. 108 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 17 businesses in this sector. 186 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 26 businesses in this sector. There were 450 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.2% 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 326. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 63, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 103 of which 95 or (92.2%) were in manufacturing and 8 (7.8%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 160. In the tertiary sector; 26 or 16.3% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 6 or 3.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 15 or 9.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 1.3% were in the information industry, 11 or 6.9% were technical professionals or scientists, 7 or 4.4% were in education and 3 or 1.9% were in health care. , there were 107 workers who commuted into the municipality and 308 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 5.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 71.1% used a private car. It is served by one stations the Vaulruz-Sud railway station on the Palézieux–Bulle–Montbovon railway line.

Religion

From the , 758 or 86.6% 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 33 or 3.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 18 individuals (or about 2.06% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 16 (or about 1.83% of the population) who were

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. 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 ...

and 1 individual who belonged to another church. 36 (or about 4.11% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 15 individuals (or about 1.71% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Vaulruz about 298 or (34.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 92 or (10.5%) 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 92 who completed tertiary schooling, 73.9% were Swiss men, 21.7% 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 98 students attending 5 classes in Vaulruz. A total of 193 students from the municipality attended any school, either in the municipality or outside of it. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 14 students in the municipality. The municipality had 4 primary classes and 84 students. During the same year, there were no lower secondary classes in the municipality, but 49 students attended lower secondary school in a neighboring municipality. There were no upper Secondary classes or vocational classes, but there were 10 upper Secondary students and 28 upper Secondary vocational students who attended classes in another municipality. The municipality had no non-university Tertiary classes, but there were 3 non-university Tertiary students and 4 specialized Tertiary students who attended classes in another municipality. , there were 18 students in Vaulruz who came from another municipality, while 67 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Fribourg