Bernex is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.
History
Bernex is first mentioned in 1256 as Brenay. In 1793 the municipality of Bernex-Onex-Confignon was created. In 1850, Bernex separated from the other two, to form the municipalities of Bernex and Onex-Confignon.
Geography
Bernex has an area, , of . Of this area, or 59.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 16.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 21.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 3.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 10.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.4% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.5%. Out of the forested land, 14.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 40.6% is used for growing crops and 5.5% is pastures, while 12.9% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located on the left bank of the Rhone river. It consists of 7 villages of Bernex and the hamlets of Chèvres, Loëx, Lully, Cressy, Challoux, Sézenove. The 7 villages that compose Bernex's municipality are symbolically recalled on the coat of arms by the 7 flames of fire that burn at the top of the hill. This hill is the culminant point of the municipality (506 m, 1,660 ft), known as the Signal de Bernex, the second highest point of the Geneva canton.
The municipality of Bernex consists of the sub-sections or villages of Les Teppes, Châtillon, Chèvres, Loëx, Cressy - Molliers, Saint-Mathieu - Combes, Saint-Mathieu - stand, Luchepelet, Vailly, Le Gamay, La Naz - Guillon.
Neighbouring municipalities
Demographics
Bernex has a population () of . , 19.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 11.2%. It has changed at a rate of 7.3% due to migration and at a rate of 1.5% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (7,759 or 85.5%), with German being second most common (421 or 4.6%) and English being third (193 or 2.1%). There are 3 people who speak Romansh and 168 people who speak Italian.
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 3,650 Swiss men (37.4% of the population) and 1,151 (11.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 4,039 Swiss women (41.4%) and 915 (9.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 1,839 or about 20.3% were born in Bernex and lived there in 2000. As of 2014, the origin of population was 44.7% were born in Geneva, 33% were born in other place of Switzerland, 22,4% were foreigners including 15,7% from European countries.
In there were 84 live births to Swiss citizens and 22 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 53 deaths of Swiss citizens and 7 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 31 while the foreign population increased by 15. There were 23 Swiss men and 27 Swiss women who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 29 non-Swiss men and 37 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 82 and the non-Swiss population increased by 80 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.7%. The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12.6%.
, there were 3,792 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 4,257 married individuals, 420 widows or widowers and 607 individuals who are divorced.