Saint-Martin, Valais


Saint-Martin is a municipality in the district of Hérens in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.

History

Saint-Martin is first mentioned in 1224 as Sanctum Martinum.

Geography

Saint-Martin has an area,, of. Of this area, 33.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 42.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 2.4% is settled and 21.8% is unproductive land.
The municipality is located in the Hérens district. It consists of the villages of Saint-Martin, Suen, Trogne, Eison, Liez, Praz-Jean and La Luette as well as a pair of hamlets including Ossona.

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure on a Mount Vert St. Martin robed Or on a Horse Argent cutting his Coat Gules to share with a Beggar Proper.

Demographics

Saint-Martin has a population of. , 3.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of -3.9%. It has changed at a rate of 2.4% due to migration and at a rate of -2.4% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population speaks French as their first language, German is the second most common and Portuguese is the third. There is 1 person who speaks Italian.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.0% male and 52.0% female. The population was made up of 432 Swiss men and 18 non-Swiss men. There were 473 Swiss women and 14 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 690 or about 76.9% were born in Saint-Martin and lived there in 2000. There were 84 or 9.4% who were born in the same canton, while 63 or 7.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 29 or 3.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
The age distribution of the population is children and teenagers make up 22.1% of the population, while adults make up 54.7% and seniors make up 23.2%.
, there were 338 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 488 married individuals, 56 widows or widowers and 15 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 342 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 83 households that consist of only one person and 31 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 349 households that answered this question, 23.8% were households made up of just one person and there were 7 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 111 married couples without children, 124 married couples with children There were 12 single parents with a child or children. There were 5 households that were made up of unrelated people and 7 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 225 single family homes out of a total of 372 inhabited buildings. There were 114 multi-family buildings, along with 18 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing and 15 other use buildings that also had some housing.
, a total of 337 apartments were permanently occupied, while 185 apartments were seasonally occupied and 42 apartments were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 8.28%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1860 from:start till:737 text:"737"
bar:1870 from:start till:764 text:"764"
bar:1880 from:start till:876 text:"876"
bar:1888 from:start till:823 text:"823"
bar:1900 from:start till:863 text:"863"
bar:1910 from:start till:877 text:"877"
bar:1920 from:start till:953 text:"953"
bar:1930 from:start till:1070 text:"1,070"
bar:1941 from:start till:1128 text:"1,128"
bar:1950 from:start till:1141 text:"1,141"
bar:1960 from:start till:1155 text:"1,155"
bar:1970 from:start till:1120 text:"1,120"
bar:1980 from:start till:1023 text:"1,023"
bar:1990 from:start till:914 text:"914"
bar:2000 from:start till:897 text:"897"

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 60.42% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the FDP and the SP. In the federal election, a total of 599 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 77.8%.

Economy

, Saint-Martin had an unemployment rate of 2.5%. , there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 19 businesses involved in this sector. 86 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 19 businesses in this sector. 80 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 27 businesses in this sector. There were 397 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.8% of the workforce.
the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 155. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 16, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 80 of which 64 or were in manufacturing and 16 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 59. In the tertiary sector; 11 or 18.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 17 or 28.8% were in the movement and storage of goods, 10 or 16.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 3.4% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 5.1% were technical professionals or scientists, 5 or 8.5% were in education.
, there were 30 workers who commuted into the municipality and 282 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 9.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 14.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 70.3% used a private car.

Religion

From the, 827 or 92.2% were Roman Catholic, while 20 or 2.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 5 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Jewish, and 10 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 36 individuals did not answer the question.

Education

In Saint-Martin about 296 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 56 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 56 who completed tertiary schooling, 66.1% were Swiss men, 30.4% were Swiss women.
, there were 2 students in Saint-Martin who came from another municipality, while 62 residents attended schools outside the municipality.