Selzach is a municipality in the district of Lebern in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.
History
Selzach is first mentioned in 1181 as Selsacho.
Geography
Selzach has an area, , of . Of this area, or 50.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 38.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 9.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.7% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.6% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.3%. Out of the forested land, 35.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 32.6% is used for growing crops and 9.2% is pastures, while 1.1% is used for orchards or vine crops and 7.3% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Lebern district. It stretches from the Aare river, at an elevation of , to the Hasenmatt mountain on the edge of the Jura Mountains, at an elevation of . It consists of the village of Selzach, the hamlet of Haag and former city of Altreu.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Salt Cellar Argent.
Demographics
Selzach has a population () of . , 11.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 9.1%.
Most of the population () speaks German (2,600 or 92.5%), with French being second most common (37 or 1.3%) and Italian being third (33 or 1.2%).
, the gender distribution of the population was 50.5% male and 49.5% female. The population was made up of 1,347 Swiss men (43.5% of the population) and 217 (7.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,352 Swiss women (43.6%) and 183 (5.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 1,057 or about 37.6% were born in Selzach and lived there in 2000. There were 755 or 26.9% who were born in the same canton, while 574 or 20.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 292 or 10.4% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 27 live births to Swiss citizens and 4 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 28 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 1 while the foreign population increased by 4. There were 5 Swiss men and 1 Swiss woman who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 3 non-Swiss men and 3 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 41 and the non-Swiss population increased by 42 people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.8%.
The age distribution, , in Selzach is; 210 children or 7.5% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 444 teenagers or 15.8% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 143 people or 5.1% of the population are between 20 and 24 years old. 793 people or 28.2% are between 25 and 44, and 767 people or 27.3% are between 45 and 64. The senior population distribution is 361 people or 12.8% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 92 people or 3.3% who are over 80.
, there were 1,072 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,426 married individuals, 163 widows or widowers and 149 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,143 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 317 households that consist of only one person and 78 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 1,159 households that answered this question, 27.4% were households made up of just one person and there were 18 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 358 married couples without children, 389 married couples with children There were 48 single parents with a child or children. There were 13 households that were made up of unrelated people and 16 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 507 single family homes (or 63.8% of the total) out of a total of 795 inhabited buildings. There were 141 multi-family buildings (17.7%), along with 92 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (11.6%) and 55 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (6.9%). Of the single family homes 31 were built before 1919, while 72 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (109) were built between 1961 and 1970.