Vezia is a municipality in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.
Geography
Vezia has an area, , of . Of this area, or 48.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 28.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 48.9% is settled (buildings or roads).
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 2.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 26.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 15.1%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 4.3%. Out of the forested land, 23.0% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 16.5% is used for growing crops, while 5.8% is used for orchards or vine crops and 26.6% is used for alpine pastures.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent a rose azure barbed and on a stalk with two yet branches leaved vert and in the chief gules a cross of the first.
Demographics
Vezia has a population () of . , 25.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 18.8%.
Most of the population () speaks Italian (85.5%), with German being second most common (6.1%) and French being third (1.8%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 96 speak German, 29 people speak French, 1,347 people speak Italian, and 3 people speak Romansh. The remainder (100 people) speak another language.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.7% male and 51.3% female. The population was made up of 669 Swiss men (34.3% of the population), and 281 (14.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 798 Swiss women (40.9%), and 202 (10.4%) non-Swiss women.
In there were 21 live births to Swiss citizens and 4 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 7 deaths of Swiss citizens and 3 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 14 while the foreign population increased by 1. There were 2 Swiss men and 1 Swiss woman who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 6 non-Swiss men and 1 non-Swiss woman 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 40 and the non-Swiss population change was an increase of 5 people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.4%.
The age distribution, , in Vezia is; 217 children or 11.1% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 182 teenagers or 9.3% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 207 people or 10.6% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 302 people or 15.5% are between 30 and 39, 348 people or 17.8% are between 40 and 49, and 253 people or 13.0% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 238 people or 12.2% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 132 people or 6.8% are between 70 and 79, there are 71 people or 3.6% who are over 80.
, there were 671 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. there were 200 single family homes (or 56.7% of the total) out of a total of 353 inhabited buildings. There were 76 two family buildings (21.5%) and 50 multi-family buildings (14.2%). There were also 27 buildings in the municipality that were multipurpose buildings (used for both housing and commercial or another purpose).
The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.24%. there were 733 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 4 room apartment of which there were 237. There were 44 single room apartments and 177 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 663 apartments (90.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 58 apartments (7.9%) were seasonally occupied and 12 apartments (1.6%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 11.8 new units per 1000 residents.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance
S. Martino, a medieval settlement and place of worship and the Villa Negroni with its park are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 30.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (18.37%), the Ticino League (17.86%) and the SP (15.23%). In the federal election, a total of 554 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 49.1%.