Wangen bei Olten

Wangen bei Olten has an area, , of . Of this area, or 24.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 53.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 21.8% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 2.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 12.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.9%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.4% of the area. Out of the forested land, 51.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 15.7% is used for growing crops and 7.3% is pastures, while 1.6% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale gules and argent, in dexter St. Gallus of the second haloed, holding a book in his dexter hand and a walking staff in his sinister hand, in sinister a wolf rampant holding a treetrunk raguly all of the first. ==Demographics==

Wangen bei Olten has a population () of . , 20.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the years 1999–2009 the population had changed at a rate of 7.1%. Most of the population () speaks German (4,078 or 89.1%), with Italian being second most common (104 or 2.3%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (95 or 2.1%). There are 33 people who speak French and 3 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 1,056 or about 23.1% were born in Wangen bei Olten and lived there in 2000. There were 1,361 or 29.7% who were born in the same canton, while 1,240 or 27.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 762 or 16.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 1,726 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,280 married individuals, 316 widows or widowers and 257 individuals who are divorced., there were 1,958 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. there were 2,104 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 671. There were 54 single room apartments and 669 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 1,919 apartments (91.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 104 apartments (4.9%) were seasonally occupied and 81 apartments (3.8%) were empty. Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:4600 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:900 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:180 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1850 from:start till:908 text:"908" bar:1860 from:start till:893 text:"893" bar:1870 from:start till:872 text:"872" bar:1880 from:start till:1006 text:"1,006" bar:1888 from:start till:1218 text:"1,218" bar:1900 from:start till:1362 text:"1,362" bar:1910 from:start till:1455 text:"1,455" bar:1920 from:start till:1684 text:"1,684" bar:1930 from:start till:1910 text:"1,910" bar:1941 from:start till:2117 text:"2,117" bar:1950 from:start till:2437 text:"2,437" bar:1960 from:start till:3639 text:"3,639" bar:1970 from:start till:4177 text:"4,177" bar:1980 from:start till:4053 text:"4,053" bar:1990 from:start till:4043 text:"4,043" bar:2000 from:start till:4579 text:"4,579" ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 25.89% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (21.16%), the FDP (21.04%) and the SP (20.85%). In the federal election, a total of 1,605 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 50.2%. ==Economy==

, Wangen bei Olten had an unemployment rate of 3.9%. , there were 18 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 8 businesses involved in this sector. 578 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 29 businesses in this sector. 1,957 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 105 businesses in this sector. , there were 1,506 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,777 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.2 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 22.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 51.1% used a private car. ==Religion==

From the , 2,152 or 47.0% were Roman Catholic, while 1,356 or 29.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 79 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.73% of the population), there were 44 individuals (or about 0.96% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 78 individuals (or about 1.70% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 250 (or about 5.46% of the population) who were Muslims. There were 10 individuals who were Buddhist, 3 individuals who were Hindu and 3 individuals who belonged to another church. 488 (or about 10.66% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 116 individuals (or about 2.53% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Wangen bei Olten about 1,941 or (42.4%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 497 or (10.9%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 497 who completed tertiary schooling, 67.8% were Swiss men, 19.7% were Swiss women, 7.4% were non-Swiss men and 5.0% were non-Swiss women. During that school year, there were 92 children in kindergarten. The canton's school system requires students to attend six years of primary school, with some of the children attending smaller, specialized classes. In the municipality there were 266 students in primary school and 33 students in the special, smaller classes. The secondary school program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling, followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. 124 lower secondary students attend school in Wangen bei Olten. , there were 2 students in Wangen bei Olten who came from another municipality, while 118 residents attended schools outside the municipality. == Minaret controversy ==

The construction of a six-meter (20 ft) high minaret in Wangen in 2005 led to a constitutional ban on their construction on 29 November 2009. The contention involved the Turkish cultural association, which applied for a construction permit to erect a minaret on the roof of its Islamic community centre. The project faced opposition from surrounding residents, who formed a group to prevent the tower's erection. The Turkish association claimed that the building authorities improperly and arbitrarily delayed its building application. They also believed that the members of the local opposition group were motivated by religious bias. The Communal Building and Planning Commission rejected the association's application. The applicants appealed to the Building and Justice Department, which reverted the decision and remanded. As a consequence of that decision, local residents (who were members of the group mentioned) and the commune of Wangen brought the case before the Administrative Court of the Canton of Solothurn, but failed with their claims. On appeal the Federal Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court. The minaret was eventually erected in July 2009. While the case led to a ban on further minaret construction, it did not affect the four minarets already then in existence in Switzerland, including that of Wangen bei Olten. ==See also==