Cernier


Cernier is the former capital of the district of Val-de-Ruz in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
The municipalities of Boudevilliers, Cernier, Chézard-Saint-Martin, Coffrane, Dombresson, Engollon, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Fontainemelon, Fontaines, Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane, Les Hauts-Geneveys, Montmollin, Le Pâquier, Savagnier and Villiers merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of Val-de-Ruz.

History

Cernier is first mentioned in 1324 as Cernies.

Geography

Cernier had an area,, of. Of this area, or 54.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 37.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.5% is settled and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.0%. Out of the forested land, 33.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 12.4% is used for growing crops and 10.4% is pastures and 31.4% is used for alpine pastures.
The former municipality is located in the Val-de-Ruz district. It consists of the village of Cernier on the valley floor at an elevation of and the hamlet of Montagne de Cernier at an elevation of.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent, an Sparrow Hawk displayed Proper langued Gules, escutcheon Gules, on a pale Argent three Chevrons Vert.

Demographics

Cernier had a population of 2,223. , 14.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 14.7%. It has changed at a rate of 16% due to migration and at a rate of 1.3% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population speaks French as their first language, German is the second most common and Italian is the third. There is 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 48.0% male and 52.0% female. The population was made up of 880 Swiss men and 187 non-Swiss men. There were 1,016 Swiss women and 138 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 399 or about 20.8% were born in Cernier and lived there in 2000. There were 709 or 36.9% who were born in the same canton, while 408 or 21.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 332 or 17.3% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers make up 24.5% of the population, while adults make up 59.5% and seniors make up 16%.
, there were 738 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 946 married individuals, 117 widows or widowers and 120 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 859 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.2 persons per household. There were 310 households that consist of only one person and 49 households with five or more people. , a total of 835 apartments were permanently occupied, while 72 apartments were seasonally occupied and 18 apartments were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 18.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.77%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1850 from:start till:633 text:"633"
bar:1860 from:start till:859 text:"859"
bar:1870 from:start till:913 text:"913"
bar:1880 from:start till:1121 text:"1,121"
bar:1888 from:start till:1149 text:"1,149"
bar:1900 from:start till:1361 text:"1,361"
bar:1910 from:start till:1513 text:"1,513"
bar:1920 from:start till:1563 text:"1,563"
bar:1930 from:start till:1426 text:"1,426"
bar:1941 from:start till:1293 text:"1,293"
bar:1950 from:start till:1440 text:"1,440"
bar:1960 from:start till:1545 text:"1,545"
bar:1970 from:start till:1717 text:"1,717"
bar:1980 from:start till:1901 text:"1,901"
bar:1990 from:start till:1866 text:"1,866"
bar:2000 from:start till:1921 text:"1,921"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 26.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the LPS Party and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 736 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.5%.

Economy

, Cernier had an unemployment rate of 5%. , there were 13 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 111 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 28 businesses in this sector. 737 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 101 businesses in this sector. There were 948 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 45.5% of the workforce.
the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 673. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 10, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 101 of which 60 or were in manufacturing and 41 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 562. In the tertiary sector; 138 or 24.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 31 or 5.5% were in the movement and storage of goods, 11 or 2.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 4 or 0.7% were in the information industry, 11 or 2.0% were the insurance or financial industry, 46 or 8.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 84 or 14.9% were in education and 93 or 16.5% were in health care.
, there were 542 workers who commuted into the municipality and 708 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 15.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 63.1% used a private car.

Religion

From the, 794 or 41.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 553 or 28.8% were Roman Catholic. Of the rest of the population, there was one member of an Orthodox church, there were three individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 129 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were three individuals who were Jewish, and 56 who were Muslim. There were three individuals who were Buddhist and two individuals who belonged to another church. 350 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 91 individuals did not answer the question.

Education

In Cernier about 708 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 221 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 221 who completed tertiary schooling, 54.3% were Swiss men, 30.8% were Swiss women, 7.7% were non-Swiss men and 7.2% were non-Swiss women.
In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory kindergarten, followed by five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. During the 2010-11 school year, there were 3 kindergarten classes with a total of 56 students in Cernier. In the same year, there were 8 primary classes with a total of 153 students.
, there were 580 students in Cernier who came from another municipality, while 69 residents attended schools outside the municipality.