Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane is a former municipality in the district of Val-de-Ruz in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
The municipalities of Boudevilliers, Cernier, Chézard-Saint-Martin, Coffrane, Dombresson, Engollon, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Fontainemelon, Fontaines, Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane, Les Hauts-Geneveys, Montmollin, Le Pâquier, Savagnier and Villiers merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of Val-de-Ruz.
History
Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane is first mentioned about 1342 as Geneveis sus Corfranoz.
Geography
Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane had an area, , of . Of this area, or 52.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 39.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.1% is settled (buildings or roads).
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.3%. Out of the forested land, 36.0% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 13.9% is used for growing crops and 13.4% is pastures and 24.9% is used for alpine pastures.
The former municipality is located in the Val-de-Ruz district, at the foot of the high Mont Racine and along the SBB-CFF-FFS Neuchâtel to La Chaux-de-Fonds rail line.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure, three Chevronelles Gules and in chief two Mullets of Five Or.
Demographics
Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane had a population () of 1,490. , 24.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 8.2%. It has changed at a rate of 4.8% due to migration and at a rate of 4.7% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (1,147 or 81.4%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (95 or 6.7%) and Italian is the third (45 or 3.2%). There are 37 people who speak German and 4 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 50.8% male and 49.2% female. The population was made up of 539 Swiss men (36.6% of the population) and 210 (14.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 572 Swiss women (38.8%) and 152 (10.3%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 286 or about 20.3% were born in Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane and lived there in 2000. There were 419 or 29.7% who were born in the same canton, while 252 or 17.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 412 or 29.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12.3%.
, there were 556 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 702 married individuals, 75 widows or widowers and 76 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 558 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 163 households that consist of only one person and 43 households with five or more people. , a total of 554 apartments (92.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 29 apartments (4.8%) were seasonally occupied and 18 apartments (3.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.7 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.5%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 24.72% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (24.63%), the FDP (16.58%) and the LPS Party (14.93%). In the federal election, a total of 475 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 52.4%.
Economy
, Les Geneveys-sur-Coffrane had an unemployment rate of 5.3%. , there were 16 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 775 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 17 businesses in this sector. 132 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 33 businesses in this sector. There were 748 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.4% of the workforce.