Renens ( ) is a municipality in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. It is located in the district of Ouest Lausannois, and is a suburb of the city of Lausanne. It is the fourth largest city in the canton. It is considered a very multiethnic town, as more than 50% of the inhabitants are resident foreign nationals from about a hundred different countries.
History
Renens is first mentioned around 888-896 as in villa Runingis. Neolithic tombs (near Bourdonnette) and a necropolis from the High Middle Ages (near Caudrey) have been discovered in the town.
In the Middle Ages Renens was owned by the cathedral chapter of Lausanne which created a prebend there between 1233 and 1303. In 1555 Claude de Praroman exchanged his old Vuarrens prebend with Bern against that of Renens for which he obtained the lordship rights. The house he already owned at 'En Plait' becomes his castle (Chateau de Renens). Lausanne bought the seigneury in 1750. The castle, sold in 1752 to Jean Pierre Audibert, passed successively to the Doxat, Sandoz, Sauter and Burckhardt families. There are rumors that Mozart stayed in this castle when he visited Lausanne.
Renens was around that time still a small village where a few families owned the countryside: the castle of 'Renens-sur-Roche' (18th century) where the Roëlls, Auberjonois and Guyots succeeded each other, and the 'Ferme des Tilleuls' (Tilia farm), built at the beginning of the 18th century by the Praroman family, where Pierre-Elie Bergier lived.
Renens became a municipality in 1798, attributed to the district of Lausanne (1798-2006) with its own municipal legislative Council from 1901. In the 1950s Renens became a city, and in 2006 the capital of the district of West-Lausanne.
Geography
Renens has an area, , of (depending on calculation method). Of this area, or 3.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 2.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 93.9% is settled (buildings or roads).
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 13.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 41.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 28.7%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 3.4% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 6.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 1.0% is used for growing crops, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.
The municipality was part of the Lausanne District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Renens became part of the new district of Ouest Lausannois.
The municipality is the capital of the new district of Ouest lausannois. It is part of the agglomeration of Lausanne, and Lausanne Métro line 1 terminates at Renens railway station. The Swiss Federal Railway line connects Renens to Lausanne more directly, as well as offering some longer-distance trains. Renens is located close to junctions 17 and 18 of the A1 motorway.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, two Pales wavy Argent, Chief of the same.
Demographics
Renens has a population () of . , 51.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 14.4%. It has changed at a rate of 10.4% due to migration and at a rate of 5.9% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (13,576 or 73.8%), with Italian being second most common (1,214 or 6.6%) and Portuguese being third (810 or 4.4%). There are 567 people who speak German and 11 people who speak Romansh.
Of the population in the municipality 2,992 or about 16.3% were born in Renens and lived there in 2000. There were 4,431 or 24.1% who were born in the same canton, while 2,566 or 13.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 7,854 or 42.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
In , there were 92 live births to Swiss citizens and 141 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 108 deaths of Swiss citizens and 29 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 16 while the foreign population increased by 112. There were 3 Swiss men and 3 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 287 non-Swiss men and 286 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 358 and the non-Swiss population increased by 208 people. This represents a population growth rate of 3.1%.