Attalens (; , locally or Talin) is a municipality in the district of Veveyse in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.
History
Attalens is first mentioned in 867 as Haltningum.
Geography
Attalens has an area of . Of this area, or 59.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 27.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 13.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 8.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.4%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.3% of the area Out of the forested land, 23.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 17.2% is used for growing crops and 40.9% is pastures, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Veveyse district, on the Vevey-Palézieux road.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent a Lion rampant Gules and overall a Bendlet Vert.
Demographics
Attalens has a population () of . , 13.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 28.4%. Migration accounted for 27.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 4.2%.
Most of the population () speaks French (2,076 or 92.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common (78 or 3.5%) and Portuguese is the third (30 or 1.3%). There are 19 people who speak Italian and 2 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 1,173 Swiss men (41.7% of the population) and 208 (7.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,231 Swiss women (43.7%) and 204 (7.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 715 or about 31.7% were born in Attalens and lived there in 2000. There were 400 or 17.8% who were born in the same canton, while 777 or 34.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 294 or 13.1% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 28.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 58.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12.3%.
, there were 958 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,075 married individuals, 123 widows or widowers and 96 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 828 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. There were 216 households that consist of only one person and 69 households with five or more people. , a total of 810 apartments (91.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 53 apartments (6.0%) were seasonally occupied and 20 apartments (2.3%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 10.9 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.26%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Heritage sites of national significance
The Notre-Dame de l'assomption Church is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SPS which received 29.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (24.0%), the CVP (16.6%) and the CSP (8.7%).
The SPS improved their position in Attalens rising to first, from second in 2007 (with 28.0%) The SVP moved from first in 2007 (with 29.0%) to second in 2011, the CVP lost popularity (22.0% in 2007) and the CSP moved from below fourth place in 2007 to fourth. A total of 753 votes were cast in this election, of which 4 or 0.5% were invalid.
Economy
, Attalens had an unemployment rate of 3.4%. , there were 50 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 19 businesses involved in this sector. 194 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 29 businesses in this sector. 308 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 50 businesses in this sector. There were 1,109 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 44.1% of the workforce.