Böckten
Böckten is a municipality in the district of Sissach in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.
Geography
Böckten has an area,, of. Of this area, or 43.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 41.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.5% is settled, or 1.3% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.8% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.3%. Out of the forested land, 39.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.6% is used for growing crops and 18.9% is pastures, while 3.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
Böckten is situated in the Ergolz valley. This valley is named after Basel-Country's main river, the Ergolz, which flows into the Rhine before Basel and was already a drinking water source for the Romans. In this valley, Böckten lies between its two main neighbouring municipalities Sissach and Gelterkinden.
Böckten's remaining two neighbouring municipalities – apart from the before mentioned Sissach and Gelterkinden – are the smaller Thürnen and Rickenbach, which lead into separate smaller valleys. The latter is the first municipality of the Homburg valley, which leads towards the Hauenstein hills.
Böckten's center lies 385 meters above sea level. However, its hills reach up to 740 meters.
General information
While Böckten has grown together with Gelterkinden during the 1980s and 1990s, it remains separate from Sissach to this day. Nevertheless, it is mainly attached to Sissach in administrative matters. Its location between these bigger municipalities, that both possess an express train railway station, makes Böckten much more connected to the nearby centers than most other localities of comparable size.History
Böckten was first mentioned as Bettinghofen, which became simplified to Bettinchon, which in turn changed to Betkon. In the Middle Ages Böckten belonged to the earl of Homburg. Its governance changed several times until it came to Basel in 1467. After the establishing of the Gotthard Pass, the Bischofstein castle was built and completed in 1311 in order to secure the region. It was destroyed due to the 1356 Basel earthquake, which affected the whole region. It has since then been restored.Not unlike many Swiss agglomerations, Böckten has witnessed a building boom from the 1980s onwards, which quickly doubled its population from below 400 in 1980 to over 700 in 1991.
Demographics
Böckten has a population of. , 7.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 12.1%.Most of the population speaks German, with Albanian being second most common and Italian language being third. There are 8 people who speak French and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The population was made up of 715 Swiss citizens, and 65 non-Swiss residents Of the population in the municipality 199 or about 29.7% were born in Böckten and lived there in 2000. There were 226 or 33.8% who were born in the same canton, while 159 or 23.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 72 or 10.8% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 10 live births to Swiss citizens and were 5 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 5 while the foreign population remained the same. There was 1 Swiss man who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there was 1 non-Swiss man who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 14 and the non-Swiss population decreased by 2 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.6%.
The age distribution,, in Böckten is; 64 children or 8.2% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 92 teenagers or 11.8% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 88 people or 11.3% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 129 people or 16.5% are between 30 and 39, 118 people or 15.1% are between 40 and 49, and 171 people or 21.9% are between 50 and 64. The senior population distribution is 82 people or 10.5% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 36 people or 4.6% who are over 80.
, there were 253 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 353 married individuals, 35 widows or widowers and 28 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 270 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 68 households that consist of only one person and 16 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 277 households that answered this question, 24.5% were households made up of just one person and 1 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 95 married couples without children, 94 married couples with children There were 8 single parents with a child or children. There were 4 households that were made up unrelated people and 7 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 133 single family homes out of a total of 195 inhabited buildings. There were 33 multi-family buildings, along with 20 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing and 9 other use buildings that also had some housing. Of the single family homes 20 were built before 1919, while 23 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes were built between 1971 and 1980.
there were 292 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 96. There were 11 single room apartments and 97 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 267 apartments were permanently occupied, while 13 apartments were seasonally occupied and 12 apartments were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.6 new units per 1000 residents. the average price to rent a two-room apartment was about 761.00 CHF, a three-room apartment was about 1001.00 CHF and a four-room apartment cost an average of 1409.00 CHF. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
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bar:1798 from:start till:236 text:"236"
bar:1850 from:start till:316 text:"316"
bar:1860 from:start till:300 text:"300"
bar:1870 from:start till:292 text:"292"
bar:1880 from:start till:364 text:"364"
bar:1888 from:start till:407 text:"407"
bar:1900 from:start till:393 text:"393"
bar:1910 from:start till:363 text:"363"
bar:1920 from:start till:394 text:"394"
bar:1930 from:start till:376 text:"376"
bar:1941 from:start till:351 text:"351"
bar:1950 from:start till:420 text:"420"
bar:1960 from:start till:539 text:"539"
bar:1970 from:start till:556 text:"556"
bar:1980 from:start till:547 text:"547"
bar:1990 from:start till:704 text:"704"
bar:2000 from:start till:669 text:"669"
Economy
Besides several typical small-scale enterprises, Böckten is the site of a factory of the Swiss comestible goods chain Le Patron., Böckten had an unemployment rate of 2.17%. , there were 17 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 334 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 13 businesses in this sector. 62 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 16 businesses in this sector. There were 352 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.9% of the workforce.
the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 383. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 9, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 333, of which 308 or were in manufacturing and 25 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 41. In the tertiary sector; 12 or 29.3% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 5 or 12.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 7.3% were in the information industry, 2 or 4.9% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 7.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 9.8% were in education and 1 or 2.4% were in health care.
, there were 321 workers who commuted into the municipality and 279 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.2 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 5.0% of the workforce coming into Böckten are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 20.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 46.9% used a private car.
Transportation
Böckten is the midpoint on the 105 bus route between Sissach train station and Gelterkinden centre which are each only a few minutes away. Both Sissach and Gelterkinden have regular trains to Basel and to Zurich, Bern and Luzern via Olten. Gelterkinden's station lies near its border with Böckten and is easily reachable on foot. Sissach's express railway station can be easily reached by bike.The Swiss automobile highway system can be joined in Sissach in an approximate distance of four kilometers.
From 1891 on, Böckten harbored a station of the electronic tramway that commuted between Sissach and Gelterkinden. This railway line became obsolete and inactive with the installment of the federal railway line Basel-Olten on January 8, 1916.
Religion
From the, 113 or 16.9% were Roman Catholic, while 389 or 58.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 2 members of an Orthodox church, there were 6 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 21 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 33 who were Islamic. There FALSE and 1 individual who belonged to another church. 89 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 15 individuals did not answer the question.Education
Böckten has its own primary school and kindergarten. From secondary school level on, students have to commute to Sissach. For facultative higher school education, students have to commute to Liestal. The closest university is the one in Basel.In Böckten about 279 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 80 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 80 who completed tertiary schooling, 75.0% were Swiss men, 17.5% were Swiss women.
, there were 55 students from Böckten who attended schools outside the municipality.
Social Life
Typical for Swiss localities, Böckten has several clubs. The most notable of them are the different sport clubs for men, women, boys and girls. Besides that there are clubs for carnival, culture, fishing, shooting, tennis, and viniculture, as well as a women's club.Politics
In the 2019 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 30.0% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP, the Green Party and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 286 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 49.0%.The municipal council consists of five members. They get elected by the local residents on a periodical basis. Each of them is responsible for a different department. Its current members as well as their respective departments are as follows:
- Mr Ulrich Altaus :
- Mr Peter Fiechter :
- Mrs Trudy Bruttel:
- Mr Ralph Thurnherr:
- Mr Elmar Gürtler:
Places of interest
- Bischofstein ruin, located at approximately above sea level, with view towards Sissach
- Lookout point with fireplace in the forest with view towards Böckten
Coat of arms
This is the emblem of the last nobility that possessed Böckten, the Truchsessen of Rheinfelden.