Bucheggberg District


Bucheggberg District is one of the ten districts of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland, situated to the southwest of the canton. Together with the Wasseramt District, it forms the Amtei of Wasseramt-Bucheggberg. It has a population of .

Municipalities

Bucheggberg District contains the following municipalities:

Mergers

On 1 January 1961 the former municipalities of Lüterkofen and Ichertswil merged to form the new municipality of Lüterkofen-Ichertswil.
On 1 January 1995 the former municipalities of Gächliwil and Lüterswil merged to form the new municipality of Lüterswil-Gächliwil.
On 1 January 2010 the municipalities of Balm bei Messen, Brunnenthal, and Oberramsern merged into the municipality of Messen.
On 1 January 2013, Lüsslingen and Nennigkofen merged to form Lüsslingen-Nennigkofen.
On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Tscheppach, Brügglen, Aetingen, Aetigkofen, Bibern, Gossliwil, Hessigkofen, Mühledorf, Küttigkofen and Kyburg-Buchegg merged into the municipality of Buchegg.

Geography

Bucheggberg district has an area,, of. Of this area, or 58.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.5% is settled, or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.9%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 57.2% is used for growing crops, while 1.4% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or three Roses Gules barbed and seeded proper in pale.

Demographics

Bucheggberg district has a population of.
Most of the population speaks German, with French being second most common and English being third. There are 4 people who speak Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.0% male and 50.0% female. The population was made up of 3,606 Swiss men and 219 non-Swiss men. There were 3,639 Swiss women and 193 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 2,524 or about 35.6% were born in the district and lived there in 2000. There were 1,556 or 21.9% who were born in the same canton, while 2,483 or 35.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 356 or 5.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 77 live births to Swiss citizens and 4 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 55 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 22 while the foreign population increased by 4. There were 4 Swiss men and 8 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 17 non-Swiss men and 17 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 34 and the non-Swiss population increased by 33 people. This represents a population growth rate of 0.9%.
, there were 2,935 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 3,499 married individuals, 371 widows or widowers and 287 individuals who are divorced.
There were 663 households that consist of only one person and 239 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 2,789 households that answered this question, 23.8% were households made up of just one person and 23 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 858 married couples without children, 1,035 married couples with children There were 117 single parents with a child or children. There were 35 households that were made up unrelated people and 58 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1860 from:start till:6004 text:"6,004"
bar:1870 from:start till:6128 text:"6,128"
bar:1880 from:start till:6422 text:"6,422"
bar:1888 from:start till:6262 text:"6,262"
bar:1900 from:start till:5875 text:"5,875"
bar:1910 from:start till:5717 text:"5,717"
bar:1920 from:start till:5839 text:"5,839"
bar:1930 from:start till:5717 text:"5,717"
bar:1941 from:start till:5725 text:"5,725"
bar:1950 from:start till:6158 text:"6,158"
bar:1960 from:start till:6169 text:"6,169"
bar:1970 from:start till:5812 text:"5,812"
bar:1980 from:start till:5766 text:"5,766"
bar:1990 from:start till:6250 text:"6,250"
bar:2000 from:start till:7092 text:"7,092"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 33.63% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the SP and the Green Party. In the federal election, a total of 3,113 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 53.5%.

Religion

From the, 793 or 11.2% were Roman Catholic, while 5,269 or 74.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 16 members of an Orthodox church, there were 28 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 85 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 32 who were Islamic. There were 9 individuals who were Buddhist and 2 individuals who belonged to another church. 723 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 135 individuals did not answer the question.

Education

In Bucheggberg about 2,933 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 984 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 984 who completed tertiary schooling, 72.5% were Swiss men, 24.6% were Swiss women, 1.9% were non-Swiss men and 1.0% were non-Swiss women.