The district of Brig is a district in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It has a population of .
Municipalities
It includes the following municipalities:
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or, an Eagle with dragon's tail displayed Sable, crowned, beaked, langued, membered and tailed Gules.
Demographics
Brig has a population of. Most of the population speaks German as their first language, Italian is the second most common and French is the third. There are 17 people who speak Romansh. , the gender distribution of the population was 48.5% male and 51.5% female. The population was made up of 10,437 Swiss men and 1,449 non-Swiss men. There were 11,126 Swiss women and 1,512 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 9,899 or about 42.9% were born in Brig and lived there in 2000. There were 7,813 or 33.9% who were born in the same canton, while 2,196 or 9.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2,463 or 10.7% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 9,857 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 11,064 married individuals, 1,331 widows or widowers and 800 individuals who are divorced. There were 2,556 households that consist of only one person and 645 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 9,179 households that answered this question, 27.8% were households made up of just one person and there were 125 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,450 married couples without children, 3,165 married couples with children. There were 475 single parents with a child or children. There were 147 households that were made up of unrelated people and 261 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray id:darkgrey value:gray ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:24000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:5000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:1000 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark: align:center bar:1850 from:start till:4236 text:"4,236" bar:1860 from:start till:5190 text:"5,190" bar:1870 from:start till:5140 text:"5,140" bar:1880 from:start till:5531 text:"5,531" bar:1888 from:start till:5566 text:"5,566" bar:1900 from:start till:9941 text:"9,941" bar:1910 from:start till:9439 text:"9,439" bar:1920 from:start till:9997 text:"9,997" bar:1930 from:start till:10186 text:"10,186" bar:1941 from:start till:10985 text:"10,985" bar:1950 from:start till:12223 text:"12,223" bar:1960 from:start till:14152 text:"14,152" bar:1970 from:start till:17299 text:"17,299" bar:1980 from:start till:19624 text:"19,624" bar:1990 from:start till:21537 text:"21,537" bar:2000 from:start till:23052 text:"23,052"
Mergers and name changes
On 1 October 1972 the former municipalities of Brig, Brigerbad and Glis merged to form the new municipality of Brig-Glis. On 1 January 2013 the former municipalities of Birgisch and Mund merged into the municipality of Naters.
Politics
In the 2007 Swiss federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 54.67% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the SP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 10,625 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 59.0%. In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election a total of 9,701 votes were cast, of which 969 or about 10.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 54.1%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 10,530 votes were cast, of which 603 or about 5.7% were invalid. The voter participation was 59.0%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Religion
From the, 19,711 or 85.5% were Roman Catholic, while 1,067 or 4.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 265 members of an Orthodox church, there were 4 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 365 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish, and 592 who were Islamic. There were 31 individuals who were Buddhist, 25 individuals who were Hinduand 10 individuals who belonged to another church. 453 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 707 individuals did not answer the question.
Weather
Brig municipality has an average of 85 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives of precipitation. The wettest month is November during which time Brig receives an average of of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 7.5 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is January, with an average of 7.9, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is September with an average of of precipitation over 5.4 days.
Education
In Brig about 8,589 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 2,232 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 2,232 who completed tertiary schooling, 65.6% were Swiss men, 20.6% were Swiss women, 8.2% were non-Swiss men and 5.6% were non-Swiss women.
