Riaz (; , or ) is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.
History
Riaz is first mentioned in 900 as Villa Roda. The municipality was formerly known by its German name Zum Rad, however, that name is no longer used.
Geography
Riaz has an area, , of . Of this area, or 62.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 12.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.3%. Out of the forested land, 23.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 16.2% is used for growing crops and 35.1% is pastures and 10.7% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Gruyère district and neighbors the district capital of Bulle. The village of Riaz is located along the Bulle-Fribourg road.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Wheel argent.
Demographics
Riaz has a population () of . , 12.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 29.1%. Migration accounted for 25.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 7.9%.
Most of the population () speaks French (1,520 or 92.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common (55 or 3.3%) and Portuguese is the third (16 or 1.0%). There are 8 people who speak Italian and 2 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 879 Swiss men (41.9% of the population) and 153 (7.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 928 Swiss women (44.3%) and 137 (6.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 378 or about 22.9% were born in Riaz and lived there in 2000. There were 807 or 49.0% who were born in the same canton, while 200 or 12.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 212 or 12.9% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 26.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 10.6%.
, there were 721 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 778 married individuals, 78 widows or widowers and 71 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 637 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 167 households that consist of only one person and 61 households with five or more people. , a total of 622 apartments (89.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 57 apartments (8.2%) were seasonally occupied and 14 apartments (2.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 17.9 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.11%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance
The Gallo-Roman villa at L’Etrey and the Paysanne House are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 25.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (25.6%), the FDP (18.6%) and the CVP (17.0%).
The SVP received about the same percentage of the vote as they did in the 2007 Federal election (25.3% in 2007 vs 25.6% in 2011). The SPS moved from third in 2007 (with 21.5%) to second in 2011, the FDP moved from fourth in 2007 (with 17.5%) to third and the CVP moved from second in 2007 (with 24.8%) to fourth. A total of 684 votes were cast in this election, of which 12 or 1.8% were invalid.
Economy
, Riaz had an unemployment rate of 3.1%. , there were 36 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 14 businesses involved in this sector. 132 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 16 businesses in this sector. 747 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 49 businesses in this sector. There were 877 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.8% of the workforce.