Sierre

Sierre (German: Siders) is the capital of the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of 16,332.

It is situated on the French–German language border of the canton of Valais. As a German-speaking minority lives in Sierre, it counts as one of the three official bilingual towns in Switzerland.

History

Sierre is first mentioned about 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 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).

Sierre (district)

The district of Sierre is a district of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of 48,476 (as of 31 December 2014).

Municipalities

It comprises the following municipalities

Coat of arms

The blazon of the district coat of arms is Gules, a Sun Or.

Demographics

Sierre has a population (as of December 2014) of 48,476. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks French (32,090 or 80.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common (3,240 or 8.1%) and Italian is the third (1,522 or 3.8%). There are 15 people who speak Romansh.

As of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 16,070 Swiss men (35.0% of the population) and 6,533 (14.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 17,331 Swiss women (37.8%) and 5,970 (13.0%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 15,421 or about 38.5% were born in Sierre and lived there in 2000. There were 10,133 or 25.3% who were born in the same canton, while 4,100 or 10.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9,037 or 22.6% were born outside of Switzerland.