The district of Goms is a district of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It covers a larger area than its geographical counterpart, the geographical region of Goms, namely the upper most part of the Rhône valley between its source and Brig. It has a population of .
Municipalities
It comprises the following municipalities:
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per fess Gules and Argent, two Crosses pattee counterchanged.
Demographics
Goms has a population of. Most of the population speaks German as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common and Albanian is the third. There are 29 people who speak French, 12 people who speak Italian. , the gender distribution of the population was 51.0% male and 49.0% female. The population was made up of 2,113 Swiss men and 292 non-Swiss men. There were 2,036 Swiss women and 274 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 2,454 or about 51.7% were born in Goms and lived there in 2000. There were 1,179 or 24.9% who were born in the same canton, while 488 or 10.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 529 or 11.2% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 1,896 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 2,434 married individuals, 309 widows or widowers and 104 individuals who are divorced. There were 609 households that consist of only one person and 145 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 1,969 households that answered this question, 30.9% were households made up of just one person and there were 23 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 520 married couples without children, 638 married couples with children There were 76 single parents with a child or children. There were 45 households that were made up of unrelated people and 58 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:4800 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:200 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark: align:center bar:1850 from:start till:4102 text:"4,102" bar:1860 from:start till:4449 text:"4,449" bar:1870 from:start till:4409 text:"4,409" bar:1880 from:start till:4445 text:"4,445" bar:1888 from:start till:4192 text:"4,192" bar:1900 from:start till:4204 text:"4,204" bar:1910 from:start till:4145 text:"4,145" bar:1920 from:start till:4037 text:"4,037" bar:1930 from:start till:4215 text:"4,215" bar:1941 from:start till:4518 text:"4,518" bar:1950 from:start till:4489 text:"4,489" bar:1960 from:start till:4457 text:"4,457" bar:1970 from:start till:4090 text:"4,090" bar:1980 from:start till:4294 text:"4,294" bar:1990 from:start till:4523 text:"4,523" bar:2000 from:start till:4743 text:"4,743"
Mergers and name changes
On 1 October 2000 the former municipalities of Biel, Ritzingen and Selkingen merged to form the new municipality of Grafschaft, and the Kommunanz of Gluringen/Ritzingen changed its name to Kommunanz Gluringen/Grafschaft. On 1 October 2004 the former municipalities of Geschinen and Münster merged to form the new municipality of Münster-Geschinen, the former municipalities of Gluringen and Reckingen merged to form the new municipality of Reckingen-Gluringen and the former municipalities of Steinhaus, Ausserbinn and Mühlebach merged into the municipality of Ernen. On 1 January 2009 the former municipalities of Ulrichen, Obergesteln and Oberwald merged to form the new municipality of Obergoms. On 1 January 2017 the former municipalities of Blitzingen, Grafschaft, Münster-Geschinen, Niederwald and Reckingen-Gluringen merged to form the new municipality of Goms.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 62.28% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the SP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 2,014 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 55.3%. In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election a total of 1,833 votes were cast, of which 169 or about 9.2% were invalid. The voter participation was 52.5%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 2,005 votes were cast, of which 60 or about 3.0% were invalid. The voter participation was 56.1%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Religion
From the, 4,029 or 84.9% were Roman Catholic, while 243 or 5.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 160 members of an Orthodox church, and there were 17 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 86 who were Islamic. 110 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 106 individuals did not answer the question.
Education
In Goms about 1,712 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 346 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 346 who completed tertiary schooling, 71.4% were Swiss men, 12.7% were Swiss women, 9.2% were non-Swiss men and 6.6% were non-Swiss women.
