Sissach () is a municipality and the capital of the district of Sissach in the canton of Basel-Country, Switzerland.
History
Sissach is first mentioned around 1225-26 as Sissaho.
Geography
Sissach has an area, of . Of this area, (28.2%) is used for agricultural purposes, while (25.0%) is developed. Of the rest of the land, (46.6%) is forested, (0.2%) is aqueous, and (0.1%) is otherwise undeveloped.
Of the developed area, housing and buildings make up 12.4%, transportation infrastructure makes up 6.3%, and industrial buildings make up 2.8% . Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas make up 1.6% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields make up 1.9%. Out of the forested land, 45.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 3.6% is used for growing crops and 16.9% is pastures, while 7.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.
The municipality is the capital of the district with the same name. Sissach village was originally a linear village along the Ergolz river. By the beginning of the 21st Century, it had expanded to fill the entire valley and part of the slopes around the valley. It grew along the road between the Schafmatt and Unterer Hauenstein Jura passes. It includes the settlements of Itchon (first mentioned in 1226), and Gruonach and Wilmatten (both mentioned in 1446).
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Gules and Argent, two Arms palewise counterchanged.
Demographics
Sissach has a population () of . , 17.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 16%.
Most of the population () speaks German (4,723 or 88.7%), with Italian language being second most common (180 or 3.4%) and Portuguese being third (98 or 1.8%). There are 34 people who speak French and 5 people who speak Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 5113 Swiss citizens (82.7% of the population), and 1669 non-Swiss residents (17.3%) Of the population in the municipality 1489 or about 28.0% were born in Sissach and lived there in 2000. There were 1394 or 26.2% who were born in the same canton, while 1351 or 25.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 938 or 17.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 53 live births to Swiss citizens and 13 births to non-Swiss citizens. In same time span there were 47 deaths of Swiss citizens and 2 non-Swiss citizen deaths. The population of Swiss citizens increased by 6 while the foreign population increased by 11. There were 6 Swiss men and 8 Swiss women who immigrated into Sissach. At the same time, there were 39 non-Swiss men and 31 non-Swiss women who moved to Sissach from another country. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 222 and the non-Swiss population increased by 65 people. This represents a population growth rate of 5.0%.
Sissach's age distribution , is as follows. 444 children (7.2% of the population) are between 0 and 6 years old and 794 teenagers (2.8%) are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 935 people (15.1%) are between 20 and 29 years old. 919 people (14.9%) are between 30 and 39, 946 people (15.3%) are between 40 and 49, and 1,194 people (19.3%) are between 50 and 64. Of seniors, 660 people (10.7%) are between 65 and 79 years old and 290 people (4.7%) are over 80.
, there were 2185 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,549 married individuals, 330 widows or widowers and 261 divorced individuals.
, there were 2332 private households in the municipality, with an average of 2.2 persons within each. Out of a total of 2378 households that answered this question, 34.9% were made up of just one person. 829 households consisted of only one person, while 116 households consisted of five or more people. Of the rest of the households, 672 were married couples without children, and 660 were married couples with children. There were 119 single parents. There were 42 households that were made up unrelated people and 46 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.