Büren (Swiss German: Büüre) is a municipality in the district of Dorneck in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.
History
Büren is first mentioned in 1194 as Buoron. In 1317 it was mentioned as Bürron.
Geography
Büren has an area, , of . Of this area, or 46.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 45.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.9%. Out of the forested land, 43.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 14.9% is used for growing crops and 22.8% is pastures, while 9.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Dorneck district, at the foot of Schlingenberg mountain.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure a Pear Tree issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Vert surrounded with three Mullets Or, one and two.
Demographics
Büren has a population () of . , 9.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 7.3%.
Most of the population () speaks German (836 or 96.1%), with Italian being second most common (12 or 1.4%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (8 or 0.9%). There are 3 people who speak French and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.8% male and 50.2% female. The population was made up of 417 Swiss men (44.2% of the population) and 53 (5.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 426 Swiss women (45.2%) and 47 (5.0%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 326 or about 37.5% were born in Büren and lived there in 2000. There were 67 or 7.7% who were born in the same canton, while 382 or 43.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 74 or 8.5% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 11 live births to Swiss citizens and were 7 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 4 while the foreign population remained the same. There were 2 Swiss men and 1 Swiss woman who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 3 non-Swiss men and 2 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 a decrease of 14 and the non-Swiss population decreased by 1 people. This represents a population growth rate of -1.6%.
The age distribution, , in Büren is; 74 children or 8.5% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 174 teenagers or 20.0% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 46 people or 5.3% of the population are between 20 and 24 years old. 265 people or 30.5% are between 25 and 44, and 202 people or 23.2% are between 45 and 64. The senior population distribution is 95 people or 10.9% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 14 people or 1.6% who are over 80.
, there were 386 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 420 married individuals, 31 widows or widowers and 33 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 328 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 70 households that consist of only one person and 26 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 331 households that answered this question, 21.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 3 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 101 married couples without children, 130 married couples with children There were 17 single parents with a child or children. There were 7 households that were made up of unrelated people and 3 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 205 single family homes (or 75.4% of the total) out of a total of 272 inhabited buildings. There were 25 multi-family buildings (9.2%), along with 33 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (12.1%) and 9 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (3.3%). Of the single family homes 41 were built before 1919, while 55 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (44) were built between 1981 and 1990.