Saint-Aubin-Sauges


Saint-Aubin-Sauges is a former municipality in the district of Boudry in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Bevaix, Saint-Aubin-Sauges, Gorgier, Vaumarcus, Montalchez and Fresens merged into the new municipality of La Grande-Béroche.

History

Saint-Aubin-Sauges is first mentioned in 1176 as Sancti Albini. In 1340 it was mentioned as villa de Sauges.

Geography

Saint-Aubin-Sauges has an area,, of. Of this area, or 47.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 38.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 13.5% is settled and or 0.3% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.5%. Out of the forested land, 35.0% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 16.9% is used for growing crops and 13.6% is pastures, while 3.9% is used for orchards or vine crops and 13.4% is used for alpine pastures.
The municipality is located in the Boudry district, in the La Béroche region. It stretched from the shores of Lake Neuchatel to an elevation of. It consists of the villages of Saint-Aubin and Sauges, which merged in 1888.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Impaled, per pale Argent and Gules a Rose counterchanged, and per pale Argent three bars Gules and Gules a Rose counterchanged.

Demographics

Saint-Aubin-Sauges has a population of. , 21.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 0.8%. It has changed at a rate of 0.6% due to migration and at a rate of 1% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population speaks French as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common and German is the third. There are 90 people who speak Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 47.7% male and 52.3% female. The population was made up of 896 Swiss men and 261 non-Swiss men. There were 1,054 Swiss women and 215 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 587 or about 24.2% were born in Saint-Aubin-Sauges and lived there in 2000. There were 603 or 24.9% who were born in the same canton, while 592 or 24.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 582 or 24.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers make up 23.3% of the population, while adults make up 59.7% and seniors make up 17%.
, there were 939 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,169 married individuals, 166 widows or widowers and 152 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,008 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 336 households that consist of only one person and 65 households with five or more people. , a total of 986 apartments were permanently occupied, while 138 apartments were seasonally occupied and 35 apartments were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 0.81%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1910 from:start till:1207 text:"1,207"
bar:1920 from:start till:1239 text:"1,239"
bar:1930 from:start till:1174 text:"1,174"
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bar:1970 from:start till:2058 text:"2,058"
bar:1980 from:start till:2085 text:"2,085"
bar:1990 from:start till:2253 text:"2,253"
bar:2000 from:start till:2426 text:"2,426"

Heritage sites of national significance

The Le Béroche, a Gallo-Roman settlement, and the neolithic settlement at Port Conty / Tivoli are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.

World heritage site

It is home to the Port-Conty prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement that is part of the Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Port-Conty has two neolithic settlements. The first is a Late Cortaillod or Port-Conty type Cortaillod village. One piece of timber from this site has been dated to 3574. The second village is a Late Horgen village. Five of the piles are from 3160 and 3159, and two piles are from 3064 and 3062. The site was discovered in 1860 by F. Troyon, who originally thought it was a Bronze Age village. Further excavations in the late 19th and early 20th century found that it was a neolithic site. In 1929-1932, P. Vouga dug a long deep trench to examine a single layer. He found three archaeological horizons which were from the Middle Neolithic, the Late Neolithic and the end of the Late Neolithic. Based on his study, it appears that the site was covered by an artificial mound which was and about deep. It was built in two stages, with a layer of branches between the layers.

Twin Town

Saint-Aubin-Sauges is twinned with the town of Untersiggenthal, Solothurn.

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 27.34% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the LPS Party, the SVP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 779 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 50.7%.

Economy

, Saint-Aubin-Sauges had an unemployment rate of 5.8%. , there were 31 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 13 businesses involved in this sector. 295 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 37 businesses in this sector. 505 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 78 businesses in this sector. There were 1,176 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 44.0% of the workforce.
the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 691. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 26, of which 21 were in agriculture, 2 were in forestry or lumber production and 3 were in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 281 of which 152 or were in manufacturing and 127 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 384. In the tertiary sector; 89 or 23.2% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 10 or 2.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 17 or 4.4% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was in the information industry, 4 or 1.0% were the insurance or financial industry, 29 or 7.6% were technical professionals or scientists, 13 or 3.4% were in education and 192 or 50.0% were in health care.
, there were 418 workers who commuted into the municipality and 760 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 1.9% of the workforce coming into Saint-Aubin-Sauges are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 10.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 63.4% used a private car.

Religion

From the, 793 or 32.7% were Roman Catholic, while 860 or 35.4% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 31 members of an Orthodox church, there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 211 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 3 individuals who were Jewish, and 23 who were Islamic. There were 4 individuals who were Buddhist and 6 individuals who belonged to another church. 507 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 92 individuals did not answer the question.

Education

In Saint-Aubin-Sauges about 874 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 315 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 315 who completed tertiary schooling, 50.5% were Swiss men, 32.4% were Swiss women, 11.1% were non-Swiss men and 6.0% 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. The kindergarten in Saint-Aubin-Sauges is combined with Vaumarcus. During the 2010-11 school year, there were 3 kindergarten classes with a total of 50 students between the municipalities. In the same year, there were 7 primary classes with a total of 133 students.
, there were 26 students in Saint-Aubin-Sauges who came from another municipality, while 192 residents attended schools outside the municipality.