Böckten

Böckten is a municipality in the district of Sissach in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.

Geography

Böckten has an area, , of . Of this area, or 43.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 41.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.3% is either rivers or lakes.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics 2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.8% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.3%. Out of the forested land, 39.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.6% is used for growing crops and 18.9% is pastures, while 3.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

Böckten is situated in the Ergolz valley. This valley is named after Basel-Country's main river, the Ergolz, which flows into the Rhine before Basel and was already a drinking water source for the Romans. In this valley, Böckten lies between its two main neighbouring municipalities Sissach (located westward, towards Liestal and Basel) and Gelterkinden (located eastward, towards Olten).

Böckten's remaining two neighbouring municipalities – apart from the before mentioned Sissach and Gelterkinden – are the smaller Thürnen and Rickenbach, which lead into separate smaller valleys. The latter is the first municipality of the Homburg valley, which leads towards the Hauenstein hills.

Böckten's center lies 385 meters above sea level. However, its hills (in the forests) reach up to 740 meters.

General information

While Böckten has grown together with Gelterkinden during the 1980s and 1990s, it remains separate from Sissach to this day. Nevertheless, it is mainly attached to Sissach in administrative matters (e.g. school system, church). Its location between these bigger municipalities, that both possess an express train railway station, makes Böckten much more connected to the nearby centers (most notably Basel and Liestal) than most other localities of comparable size.

Unlike in neighbouring Sissach and Gelterkinden, there are no church bells in Böckten to wake you at 6am.

History Böckten was first mentioned as Bettinghofen, which became simplified to Bettinchon (first mentioned in 1246), which in turn changed to Betkon (first mentioned in 1339). In the Middle Ages Böckten belonged to the earl of Homburg. Its governance changed several times until it came to Basel in 1467. After the establishing of the Gotthard Pass, the Bischofstein castle was built and completed in 1311 in order to secure the region. It was destroyed due to the 1356 Basel earthquake, which affected the whole region. It has since then been restored.

Not unlike many Swiss agglomerations, Böckten has witnessed a building boom from the 1980s onwards, which quickly doubled its population from below 400 in 1980 to over 700 in 1991.

Demographics Böckten has a population () of . , 7.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Superweb database – Gemeinde Statistics 1981–2008 accessed 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 12.1%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 4 March 2011

Most of the population () speaks German (605 or 90.4%), with Albanian being second most common (13 or 1.9%) and Italian language being third (12 or 1.8%). There are 8 people who speak French and 1 person who speaks Romansh.

, the gender distribution of the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The population was made up of 715 Swiss citizens (91.7% of the population), and 65 non-Swiss residents (8.3%) Of the population in the municipality 199 or about 29.7% were born in Böckten and lived there in 2000. There were 226 or 33.8% who were born in the same canton, while 159 or 23.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 72 or 10.8% were born outside of Switzerland.

In there were 10 live births to Swiss citizens and were 5 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 5 while the foreign population remained the same. There was 1 Swiss man who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there was 1 non-Swiss man 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 14 and the non-Swiss population decreased by 2 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.6%.

The age distribution, , in Böckten is; 64 children or 8.2% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 92 teenagers or 11.8% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 88 people or 11.3% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 129 people or 16.5% are between 30 and 39, 118 people or 15.1% are between 40 and 49, and 171 people or 21.9% are between 50 and 64. The senior population distribution is 82 people or 10.5% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 36 people or 4.6% who are over 80.Canton of Basel-Land Statistics, Wohnbevölkerung nach Nationalität und Konfession per 30. September 2010 accessed 16 February 2011

, there were 253 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 353 married individuals, 35 widows or widowers and 28 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 – 2000 accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 270 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 68 households that consist of only one person and 16 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 277 households that answered this question, 24.5% were households made up of just one person and 1 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 95 married couples without children, 94 married couples with children There were 8 single parents with a child or children. There were 4 households that were made up unrelated people and 7 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.

there were 133 single family homes (or 68.2% of the total) out of a total of 195 inhabited buildings. There were 33 multi-family buildings (16.9%), along with 20 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (10.3%) and 9 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (4.6%). Of the single family homes 20 were built before 1919, while 23 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (36) were built between 1971 and 1980.Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB – Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 – Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011

there were 292 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 96. There were 11 single room apartments and 97 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 267 apartments (91.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 13 apartments (4.5%) were seasonally occupied and 12 apartments (4.1%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.6 new units per 1000 residents. the average price to rent a two-room apartment was about 761.00 CHF (US$610, £340, €490), a three-room apartment was about 1001.00 CHF (US$800, £450, €640) and a four-room apartment cost an average of 1409.00 CHF (US$1130, £630, €900).Canton of Basel-Land Statistics , Mieter- und Genossenschafterwohnungen1 nach Zimmerzahl und Mietpreis 2000 accessed 20 February 2011 The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0%.

The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850–2000 accessed 29 January 2011

Economy Besides several typical small-scale enterprises, Böckten is the site of a factory of the Swiss comestible goods chain Le Patron.

, Böckten had an unemployment rate of 2.17%. , there were 17 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 334 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 13 businesses in this sector. 62 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 16 businesses in this sector. There were 352 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.9% of the workforce.

the total number of full-time equivalent jobs was 383. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 9, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 333, of which 308 or (92.5%) were in manufacturing and 25 (7.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 41. In the tertiary sector; 12 or 29.3% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 5 or 12.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 7.3% were in the information industry, 2 or 4.9% were the insurance or financial industry, 3 or 7.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 9.8% were in education and 1 or 2.4% were in health care.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1–3 accessed 28 January 2011

, there were 321 workers who commuted into the municipality and 279 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.2 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 5.0% of the workforce coming into Böckten are coming from outside Switzerland. accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 20.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 46.9% used a private car.

Transportation Böckten is the midpoint on the 105 bus route between Sissach train station and Gelterkinden centre which are each only a few minutes away. Both Sissach and Gelterkinden have regular trains to Basel (17 mins) and to Zurich, Bern and Luzern via Olten. Gelterkinden's station lies near its border with Böckten and is easily reachable on foot. Sissach's express railway station can be easily reached by bike.

The Swiss automobile highway system can be joined in Sissach in an approximate distance of four kilometers.

From 1891 on, Böckten harbored a station of the electronic tramway that commuted between Sissach and Gelterkinden. This railway line became obsolete and inactive with the installment of the federal railway line Basel-Olten on 8 January 1916.

Religion From the , 113 or 16.9% were Roman Catholic, while 389 or 58.1% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 2 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.30% of the population), there were 6 individuals (or about 0.90% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 21 individuals (or about 3.14% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 33 (or about 4.93% of the population) who were Islamic. 89 (or about 13.30% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 15 individuals (or about 2.24% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education Böckten has its own primary school (5 school years, from age 7 on) and kindergarten (2 school years, from age 5 on). From secondary school level on (4 school years, from age 12 on), students have to commute to Sissach (by bicycle or bus). For facultative higher school education (as grammar school), students have to commute to Liestal (by train). The closest university is the one in Basel.

In Böckten about 279 or (41.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 80 or (12.0%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 80 who completed tertiary schooling, 75.0% were Swiss men, 17.5% were Swiss women.