Tenero-Contra is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.
Geography
Tenero-Contra has an area, , of . Of this area, or 27.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 45.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 36.0% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.9% is either rivers or lakes and 1.9% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 13.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.1% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 12.5%. Out of the forested land, 43.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 10.6% is used for growing crops, while 3.5% is used for orchards or vine crops and 13.3% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 1.6% is in lakes and 0.3% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 1.4% is too rocky for vegetation.
Demographics
Tenero-Contra has a population () of . , 26.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 9.2%.
Most of the population () speaks Italian (79.5%), with German being second most common (12.1%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (1.7%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 277 speak German, 32 people speak French, 1,824 people speak Italian, and 3 people speak Romansh. The remainder (159 people) speak another language.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.3% male and 51.7% female. The population was made up of 906 Swiss men (34.6% of the population), and 357 (13.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,035 Swiss women (39.5%), and 319 (12.2%) non-Swiss women.
In there were 16 live births to Swiss citizens and 6 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 23 deaths of Swiss citizens and 3 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 7 while the foreign population increased by 3. There were 4 Swiss men and 2 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 8 non-Swiss men and 11 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 61 and the non-Swiss population change was an increase of 5 people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.7%.
The age distribution, , in Tenero-Contra is; 267 children or 10.2% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 266 teenagers or 10.2% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 274 people or 10.5% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 328 people or 12.5% are between 30 and 39, 455 people or 17.4% are between 40 and 49, and 315 people or 12.0% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 342 people or 13.1% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 210 people or 8.0% are between 70 and 79, there are 160 people or 6.1% who are over 80.
, there were 992 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. there were 335 single family homes (or 64.1% of the total) out of a total of 523 inhabited buildings. There were 75 two family buildings (14.3%) and 74 multi-family buildings (14.1%). There were also 39 buildings in the municipality that were multipurpose buildings (used for both housing and commercial or another purpose).
The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.07%. there were 1,275 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 4 room apartment of which there were 396. There were 53 single room apartments and 172 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 990 apartments (77.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 220 apartments (17.3%) were seasonally occupied and 65 apartments (5.1%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 9.7 new units per 1000 residents.
The historical population is given in the following table:
The Australian-born Nobel Prize winner Sir John Carew Eccles (1903–1997) lived and died in Tenero-Contra.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 23.41% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (20.47%), the CVP (19.7%) and the Ticino League (15.96%). In the federal election, a total of 651 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 44.4%.