Aigle
Aigle is a historic town and a municipality and the capital of the district of Aigle in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.
The official language of Aigle is Swiss French.
Geography
Aigle lies at an elevation of about south-southeast of Montreux. It is on the east edge of the Rhône valley, at the foot of the Swiss Alps.Aigle has an area,, of. Of this area, or 34.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 37.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 25.6% is settled, or 2.7% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.6% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 5.2% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 21.5% is used for growing crops and 2.4% is pastures, while 10.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.6% is in lakes and 2.1% is in rivers and streams.
Aigle includes the villages of Le Cloître, Vers Pousaz, and Fontanney. The surrounding municipalities are Yvorne, Leysin, Ormont-Dessous, and Ollon in the canton of Vaud, and Vouvry and Collombey-Muraz in the canton of Valais.
History
The municipality was settled very early. Burials and ceramics from the Bronze Age have been discovered. During Roman times, Aigle lay on the road from the Great Saint Bernard pass via Viviscus to Aventicum, the Roman capital. The Romans had a number of names for Aigle: Ala, Alena, Aquilegia and Aquilas.The first medieval mention of the municipality occurs in 1150 under the name of Alium.
A mention in 1153 gives the name as Aleo. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV gave the territory of Aigle in 1076 to the house of Savoy. The Abbeys of Great Saint Bernard and Saint-Maurice also had holdings in Aigle, and the latter established a priory, from which the village of Le Cloître takes its name.
In 1231, Aigle was made a market town by Thomas I of Savoy, and in 1314 it was raised to a free town by Amadeus V of Savoy.
It became an important commercial center because of its location on the road to Italy.
It had a common parish with Leysin and with Corbeyrier and Yvorne. SInce the 14th century, it had a treaty with Sembrancher in Valais, that committed the two communities for mutual aid in case of war or natural disaster.
In 1475, the mountain regions of Saanen and Pays-d'Enhaut, who were allied with Bern, attacked and burned the tower of Aigle Castle. They then gave Aigle town and the surrounding district, including Ollon, Bex, and Les Ormonts, to Bern in exchange for not having to pay one-third of their income to Bern. In the treaty of Fribourg from 1476, Fribourg received rights over the Aigle district, which they gave up to Bern in 1483. Bern rebuilt Aigle Castle in 1489 and made it the seat of the bailiwick of Aigle. The Aigle bailiwick included all of the present district except Villeneuve. It was thus the first of the French-speaking parts of Switzerland to become subject to Bern.
In 1528, the Reformation was first preached in Aigle by Guillaume Farel.
From 1798 to 1803, Aigle belonged to the canton of Léman in the Helvetic Republic, which was transformed into the canton of Vaud with the mediation of Napoleon.
The Geographical dictionary of 1821 by J. van Wijk Roelandszoon names the village Aelen, comprises 600 houses and 2.500 inhabitants, with a Salt mine that yields 15,000 cents. The district Aelen is long and in width, 7500 total inhabitants.
In the 19th century, the canton of Vaud was an outspoken opponent of an attempt by a number of cantons to secede from Switzerland. This Catholic separatist movement led to intervention in 1847 by 99,000 Swiss Federal troops under General Henri Dufour against 79,000 separatists in what is called the Sonderbund war. Separation was prevented at the cost of 86 lives. The 1848 Swiss Federal Constitution was created in response of the Sonderbund war.
The Chablais and the Chablais Alps
Chablais was a former province of the Duchy of Savoy. Its historic capital was Thonon-les-Bains. The modern Chablais "region" is three territories: the Chablais Savoyard, the Chablais Valaisan, and the Chablais Vaudois. The Chablais Savoyard is within the department of Haute-Savoie in France, the Chablais Valaisan is in the Swiss canton of Valais, and the Chablais Vaudois is in the Swiss canton of Vaud. The Chablais Alps is the mountain range situated between France and Switzerland.Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Per fess Sable and Or, two displayed eagles 1-1 counterchanged.''Demographics
Aigle has a population of., 37.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 15.4%. It has changed at a rate of 14.7% due to migration and at a rate of 1.5% due to births and deaths.Most of the population speaks French, with Portuguese being second most common and Albanian being third. There are 235 people who speak German, 264 people who speak Italian and 5 people who speak Romansh.
Of the population in the municipality 2,236 or about 28.1% were born in Aigle and lived there in 2000. There were 1,782 or 22.4% who were born in the same canton, while 1,188 or 14.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2,402 or 30.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 56 live births to Swiss citizens and 41 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 54 deaths of Swiss citizens and 7 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 2 while the foreign population increased by 34. There were 7 Swiss men who emigrated from Switzerland. At the same time, there were 93 non-Swiss men and 88 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 was an increase of 124 and the non-Swiss population increased by 118 people. This represents a population growth rate of 2.9%.
The age distribution,, in Aigle is; 933 children or 10.7% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 1,137 teenagers or 13.0% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 1,255 people or 14.3% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 1,068 people or 12.2% are between 30 and 39, 1,307 people or 14.9% are between 40 and 49, and 1,134 people or 13.0% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 940 people or 10.7% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 547 people or 6.3% are between 70 and 79, there are 352 people or 4.0% who are 80 and 89, and there are 77 people or 0.9% who are 90 and older.
, there were 3,227 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 3,809 married individuals, 502 widows or widowers and 417 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 3,342 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 1,158 households that consist of only one person and 251 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 3,400 households that answered this question, 34.1% were households made up of just one person and there were 19 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 869 married couples without children, 1,055 married couples with children. There were 202 single parents with a child or children. There were 39 households that were made up of unrelated people and 58 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 567 single family homes out of a total of 1,172 inhabited buildings. There were 294 multi-family buildings, along with 214 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing and 97 other use buildings that also had some housing. Of the single family homes 130 were built before 1919, while 47 were built between 1990 and 2000. The most multi-family homes were built before 1919 and the next most were built between 1981 and 1990.
there were 4,178 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 1,502. There were 324 single room apartments and 585 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 3,286 apartments were permanently occupied, while 565 apartments were seasonally occupied and 327 apartments were empty., the construction rate of new housing units was 20.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 1.42%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
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id:darkgrey value:gray
ImageSize = width:1020 height:210
PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:8000
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bar:1764 from:start till:1431 text:"1,431"
bar:1850 from:start till:2296 text:"2,296"
bar:1860 from:start till:2582 text:"2,582"
bar:1870 from:start till:3273 text:"3,273"
bar:1880 from:start till:3319 text:"3,319"
bar:1888 from:start till:3540 text:"3,540"
bar:1900 from:start till:3897 text:"3,897"
bar:1910 from:start till:3972 text:"3,972"
bar:1920 from:start till:3840 text:"3,840"
bar:1930 from:start till:3912 text:"3,912"
bar:1941 from:start till:3918 text:"3,918"
bar:1950 from:start till:4271 text:"4,271"
bar:1960 from:start till:4381 text:"4,381"
bar:1970 from:start till:6532 text:"6,532"
bar:1980 from:start till:6233 text:"6,233"
bar:1990 from:start till:7825 text:"7,825"
bar:2000 from:start till:7955 text:"7,955"