Gösgen District is one of the ten districts of the canton of Solothurn, Switzerland, situated to the northeast of the canton. Together with the Olten District, Gösgen forms the electoral district of Olten-Gösgen. It has a population of .
Municipalities
Gösgen District contains the following municipalities:
Mergers and name changes
On 1 January 2006 the former municipalities of Obererlinsbach and Niedererlinsbach merged to form the new municipality of Erlinsbach.
Geography
Gösgen has an area,, of. Of this area, or 41.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 43.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.3% is settled, or 1.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.4%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.3%. Out of the forested land, 40.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 37.2% is used for growing crops, while 2.0% is used for orchards or vine crops and 1.8% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the district is flowing water.
Gösgen has a population of. Most of the population speaks German, with Italian being second most common and Serbo-Croatian being third. There are 130 people who speak French and 24 people who speak Romansh. , the gender distribution of the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was made up of 8,779 Swiss men and 2,677 non-Swiss men. There were 9,378 Swiss women and 2,275 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 6,589 or about 29.7% were born in Gösgen and lived there in 2000. There were 4,719 or 21.2% who were born in the same canton, while 6,614 or 29.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,703 or 16.7% were born outside of Switzerland. In there were 122 live births to Swiss citizens and 54 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 170 deaths of Swiss citizens and 17 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 48 while the foreign population increased by 37. There were 33 Swiss men and 21 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 103 non-Swiss men and 48 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 103 and the non-Swiss population increased by 139 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.1%. , there were 8,914 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 11,018 married individuals, 1,281 widows or widowers and 998 individuals who are divorced. There were 2,686 households that consist of only one person and 676 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 9,196 households that answered this question, 29.2% were households made up of just one person and 81 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,733 married couples without children, 3,008 married couples with children There were 438 single parents with a child or children. There were 118 households that were made up unrelated people and 132 households that were made 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:23000 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:7175 text:"7,175" bar:1860 from:start till:7158 text:"7,158" bar:1870 from:start till:7267 text:"7,267" bar:1880 from:start till:7516 text:"7,516" bar:1888 from:start till:7819 text:"7,819" bar:1900 from:start till:8818 text:"8,818" bar:1910 from:start till:10215 text:"10,215" bar:1920 from:start till:11462 text:"11,462" bar:1930 from:start till:12725 text:"12,725" bar:1941 from:start till:13385 text:"13,385" bar:1950 from:start till:14495 text:"14,495" bar:1960 from:start till:16942 text:"16,942" bar:1970 from:start till:20349 text:"20,349" bar:1980 from:start till:20359 text:"20,359" bar:1990 from:start till:21050 text:"21,050" bar:2000 from:start till:22211 text:"22,211"
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 30.41% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP, the SP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 7,630 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.6%.
Religion
From the, 10,244 or 46.1% were Roman Catholic, while 5,991 or 27.0% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 351 members of an Orthodox church, there were 264 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 445 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 15 individuals who were Jewish, and 1,304 who were Islamic. There were 70 individuals who were Buddhist, 85 individuals who were Hindu and 17 individuals who belonged to another church. 2,835 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 590 individuals did not answer the question.
Weather
Gösgen has an average of 127.9 days of rain or snow per year and on average receives of precipitation. The wettest month is June during which time Gösgen receives an average of of rain or snow. During this month there is precipitation for an average of 12.4 days. The month with the most days of precipitation is May, with an average of 12.6, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year is October with an average of of precipitation over 8.1 days.
Education
In Gösgen about 8,667 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 2,238 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 2,238 who completed tertiary schooling, 68.3% were Swiss men, 20.1% were Swiss women, 7.9% were non-Swiss men and 3.8% were non-Swiss women.
