Sierre (; ; ) is the capital municipality of the district of Sierre, located in the Rhône valley in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It has a population of 18,020. Sierre is nicknamed City of the Sun () for its average of 300 days of sunshine a year.
It is the last official French-speaking city in Valais before the French–German language border of the canton located at the forêt de Finges, a few kilometres after the town. A German-speaking minority lives in Sierre, counting for around 8% of the population.Revue de géographie alpine accessed 10-December-2016
History
Sierre was first mentioned around 800 as Sidrium, though a 12th-century document refers to the village being founded in 515. In 1179 it was mentioned as Sirro and in 1393 as Syder.
Prehistory The area around the modern town, especially Gerunden hill, was settled very early. Archeological sites on the Gerunden hill have produced neolithic objects and grave goods (including a polished stone ax), Bronze Age weapons and jewelry, Early Iron Age objects, and Roman era inscriptions, jars, jewelry, and coins. A soapstone pot from the Early Middle Ages and a gold signet ring with the name Graifarius from the 6th century have also been found. Other sites on nearby hills and near the chapel of Saint-Ginier, the Château de Villa, the churches of Sainte-Croix, Grands-Prés, Muraz, Glarey and Bernunes have yielded up graves originating from the Bronze Age to the Carolingian era. In Grands-Prés there is a fire pit from the beginning of the Late Iron Age (5th–6th century BC).
During the Roman era it appears that there was no major population center, but rather several scattered groupings of separate, upper-class dwellings. Under the chapel of Saint-Ginier, the remains of a Roman-era house or estate have been discovered. Other Roman ruins have been found near the Château de Villa, in the church of Sainte-Croix (small terraced bath), in Grands-Prés by Muraz another house and in Gerunden the remains of buttress reinforced masonry indicate that a public or government building once stood there. Five altars were found in Saint-Ginier, along with another two in the scattered settlements, one of which was dedicated to Mercury. During the early imperial period, the duumvir or mayor of the Civitas Vallensium, Caius Cominus Chiu, lived in Sierre. In the late imperial period, the family of the senator of Vinelia Modestina also lived in the area.
The chapel of Saint-Félix was built in the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century on Gerunden hill.
Medieval and early modern developments In 515 the estate at Sierre was given by the King of Burgundy Sigismund to the Abbey of Saint-Maurice to hold as a fief. By the 11th century, the fief of Sierre was owned by the Bishop of Sion. The aristocratic families and the residents of the fief lived on the Gerunden, Vieux-Sierre, and Plantzette hills. On each of these hills there was a castle that served as the residence for the Bishop's representatives and as a refuge for the population. The castles were razed in the mid-14th century when the noble families stood with the Bishop in his war with the Zenden of the Upper Valais and Counts of Savoy. The demolished castles and villages were abandoned and most residents settled farther north, in plan-Sierre. The only castle that survived the wars of the 14th century was Goubing Castle, southeast of Sierre, which belonged to the lords of Granges.
The Contrée of Sierre was originally a group that managed the commons. As vassals of the Bishop, they had the right to assemble twice a year to regulate the management of the common lands and the affairs of the local police. In the 14th and 15th centuries, this cooperative adopted a larger political role as they started to administer more of the daily affairs in the villages and acquired the right to appoint their own judges. Eventually, this grew into the Noble Contrée which then formed the core of Sierre Zenden from which the city of Sierre later developed. The town of Plan-Sierre soon took over the leadership role in the Noble Contrée. Until 1798, the Noble Contrée was appointed by a council of village representatives, under the leadership of the Bishop's representative. In 1559, Plan-Sierre divided into four quarters: Villa, Monderèche, La Salla, and Glarey. In 1620, the town hall was built.
19th century
As the capital of a Zenden, Sierre fought the French in the 1798–99 invasion. In 1799, the city was occupied by French and Vaudois troops. The French set up their headquarters in Sierre.
In the conflicts between the conservative Upper Valais and the liberal Lower Valais, Sierre served as the seat of government in 1839–40. After 1848, the villages of the Noble Contrée became municipalities under the Valais cantonal constitution. The Zenden of Sierre became the District of Sierre with Sierre as the capital. The new city executive council had nine members, while of the General Council (legislature) had 60. Initially, the majority of the power was held by the Conservatives (now the Christian Democrats). In 1913, they were joined by the Liberals, in 1945 the Social Democrats, and in 2004 the Greens.
Modern Sierre At the beginning of the 20th century, Sierre became economically important as aluminium smelting has been historically enabled by its access to hydroelectricity. Today the aluminium companies Novelis and Alcan employ 1,200 workers in Chippis and Sierre.
In 2007, the agglomeration of Sierre/Crans-Montana was formed to address created to common problems, especially in the fields of tourism and transportation.
Geography
Sierre has an area, , of . Of this area, or 34.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 21.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 34.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 6.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 3.1% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics 2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built-up area, industrial buildings made up 5.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 10.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 4.0% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 4.4%. Out of the forested land, 18.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 6.9% is used for growing crops and 2.5% is pastures, while 25.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 1.3% is in lakes and 5.5% is in rivers and streams.
The municipality is the capital of the Sierre district. It is located in the middle Rhône valley, on the right bank of the river. The nearby Raspille mountain stream is considered the dividing line between the French and German-speaking portions of Switzerland. It consists of the city of Sierre, the villages of Granges, Noës and Muraz, and the hamlets and settlements of Gerunden, Plantzette, Vieux-Sierre, Bourg, Glarey, Borzuat, Zervettaz, Villa d'en Bas, d'en Haut, Sous Géronde, Cuchon, and Monderèche.
Sierre is a starting point for the tourist sites of the Val d'Anniviers, comprising the villages of Vercorin, Chandolin, St-Luc Vissoie, St-Jean Chandolin, Grimentz, Zinal, and Ayer. Sierre is connected with Crans-Montana by a funicular railway.
Lac de Géronde is a small lake on its outskirts.
The hilly topography of the valley floor derives from a very large postglacial rock avalanche, which collapsed from a fractured scar high to the north.
Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a Sun in Splendour Or.Flags of the World.com accessed 23-September-2011 The coat of arms is depicted (uncolorised) in the Schalbetter map (printed in 1545 by Sebastian Münster, Basel).
Demographics
Sierre has a population () of . , 27.0% 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 (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 12.3%. It has changed at a rate of 11.9% due to migration and at a rate of 0% due to births and deaths.Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 23-September-2011
Most of the population () speaks French (10,710 or 74.8%) as their first language, German is the second most common (1,803 or 12.6%) and Italian is the third (765 or 5.3%). There are 6 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 48.4% male and 51.6% female. The population was made up of 5,339 Swiss men (33.8% of the population) and 2,305 (14.6%) non-Swiss men. There were 6,123 Swiss women (38.8%) and 2,020 (12.8%) non-Swiss women.Ständige Wohnbevolkerung nach Geschlecht und Heimat am 31 December 2009.xls accessed 24 August 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 5,363 or about 37.5% were born in Sierre and lived there in 2000. There were 3,705 or 25.9% who were born in the same canton, while 1,412 or 9.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,273 or 22.9% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 61.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.1%.
, there were 5,651 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 6,891 married individuals, 974 widows or widowers and 801 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 – 2000 accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 6,016 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 2,133 households that consist of only one person and 319 households with five or more people. , a total of 5,728 apartments (84.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 875 apartments (12.9%) were seasonally occupied and 205 apartments (3.0%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB – Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 – Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 3.4 new units per 1,000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.15%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850–2000 accessed 29 January 2011
Heritage sites of national significance The Centrale Électrique et Bâtiments Alusuisse (Power station and buildings of the Alusuisse company) is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire Sierre town and surrounding are part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
Sights Sierre is host to a local wine museum (Musée Valaisan de la Vigne et du Vin) and of a museum dedicated to the memory of Rainer Maria Rilke who lived there until his death and is buried in the nearby town of Raron.
Twin towns Sierre is twinned with the towns of Aubenas, France Cesenatico, Italy accessed 27 April 2011 Delfzijl, Netherlands Schwarzenbek, Germany Zelzate, Belgium
Politics In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 34.23% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (19.19%), the FDP (17.78%) and the SVP (16.92%). In the federal election, a total of 5,203 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 57.3%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Nationalratswahlen 2007: Stärke der Parteien und Wahlbeteiligung, nach Gemeinden/Bezirk/Canton accessed 28 May 2010
In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election a total of 4,904 votes were cast, of which 330 or about 6.7% were invalid. The voter participation was 54.4%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 54.67%.Staatsratswahlen vom 1. März 2009 accessed 24 August 2011 In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 5,130 votes were cast, of which 498 or about 9.7% were invalid. The voter participation was 57.4%, which is similar to the cantonal average of 59.88%.Ständeratswahl 2007 accessed 24 August 2011
Economy