Grenchen () is a municipality in the district of Lebern in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.
It is located at the foot of the Jura mountains between Solothurn and Biel/Bienne, approximately north of Bern. With over 16,000 inhabitants, it is one of the larger towns of the canton of Solothurn. The city is well known for its watch industry, that has been present for more than 150 years.
Grenchen was the 2008 winner of the Wakker Prize for architectural heritage.
Jura-Sternwarte Grenchen is located at Grenchen.
History
Around 1000 AD, the local barons built a castle on the local cliff that was inhabited for three centuries. The name Grenchen was first documented in 1131 as Granechun. The name comes from the gallo-romanic graneca, meaning by the granary.
1851: Clock manufacture begins
1918: General strike
Geography
Grenchen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 37.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 40.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 20.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 2.2% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 9.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, 38.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 25.8% is used for growing crops and 6.0% is pastures and 5.3% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is the capital of the Lebern District. It is the second largest city in the Canton of Solothurn. The municipality stretches from the hamlet of Staad along the Aare river at an elevation of to the first mountain range of the Jura Mountains, the Oberer Grenchenberg at .
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Ploughshare Argent.
Demographics
Grenchen has a population () of . , 28.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -1.3%.
Most of the population () speaks German (13,033 or 81.8%), with Italian being second most common (1,022 or 6.4%) and French being third (460 or 2.9%). There are 16 people who speak Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 5,328 Swiss men (33.3% of the population) and 2,547 (15.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 5,845 Swiss women (36.5%) and 2,289 (14.3%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 5,606 or about 35.2% were born in Grenchen and lived there in 2000. There were 2,017 or 12.7% who were born in the same canton, while 4,258 or 26.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,433 or 21.5% were born outside of Switzerland.
In , there were 75 live births to Swiss citizens and 47 births to non-Swiss citizens. In the same time span, there were 167 deaths of Swiss citizens and 10 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 92 while the foreign population increased by 37. There were 21 Swiss men and 16 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 103 non-Swiss men and 59 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 20 and the non-Swiss population increased by 190 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.1%.
The age distribution in Grenchen was as follows: 942 children or 5.9% of the population were between 0 and 6 years old and 2,291 teenagers or 14.4% were between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 838 people or 5.3% of the population were between 20 and 24 years old. 4,463 people or 28.0% were between 25 and 44, and 4,000 people or 25.1% were between 45 and 64. The senior population distribution was 2,551 people or 16.0% of the population was between 65 and 79 years old and there were 853 people or 5.4% who were over 80.
, there were 5,771 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 7,679 married individuals, 1,264 widows or widowers and 1,224 individuals who were divorced.