Les Bois

Les Bois is first mentioned in 1484 as Des Boix. ==Geography==

Les Bois has an area of . Of this area, or 56.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 37.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.5%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.8%. Out of the forested land, 31.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 6.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 32.6% is pastures and 23.5% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent, three Pine trees Vert trunked and radicated Sable issaunt from Coupeaux Gules. The three trees are an example of canting since Les Bois means the woods. ==Demographics==

Les Bois has a population () of . , 9.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 14.7%. Migration accounted for 12.2%, while births and deaths accounted for 3%. Most of the population () speaks French (958 or 93.1%) as their first language, German is the second most common (46 or 4.5%) and Italian is the third (6 or 0.6%). Of the population in the municipality, 466 or about 45.3% were born in Les Bois and lived there in 2000. There were 128 or 12.4% who were born in the same canton, while 287 or 27.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 109 or 10.6% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 373 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.6 persons per household. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.6 new units per 1000 residents. Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:1020 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:1700 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:300 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:60 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1818 from:start till:1060 text:"1,060" bar:1850 from:start till:1339 text:"1,339" bar:1860 from:start till:1691 text:"1,691" bar:1870 from:start till:1697 text:"1,697" bar:1880 from:start till:1625 text:"1,625" bar:1888 from:start till:1575 text:"1,575" bar:1900 from:start till:1456 text:"1,456" bar:1910 from:start till:1323 text:"1,323" bar:1920 from:start till:1171 text:"1,171" bar:1930 from:start till:1153 text:"1,153" bar:1941 from:start till:1079 text:"1,079" bar:1950 from:start till:1064 text:"1,064" bar:1960 from:start till:1098 text:"1,098" bar:1970 from:start till:1110 text:"1,110" bar:1980 from:start till:917 text:"917" bar:1990 from:start till:974 text:"974" bar:2000 from:start till:1029 text:"1,029" ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SPS which received 36.67% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CSP (22.96%), the CVP (16.64%) and the SVP (13.1%). In the federal election, a total of 327 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 40.8%. ==Economy==

, Les Bois had an unemployment rate of 4.8%. , there were 128 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 47 businesses involved in this sector. 246 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 17 businesses in this sector. 116 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 30 businesses in this sector. , there were 198 workers who commuted into the municipality and 281 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 32.8% of the workforce coming into Les Bois are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 8% used public transportation to get to work, and 60% used a private car. ==Transport==

The municipality has three railway stations on the La Chaux-de-Fonds–Glovelier line: , , and . ==Religion==

From the , 668 or 64.9% were Roman Catholic, while 177 or 17.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 2 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.19% of the population), and there were 42 individuals (or about 4.08% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 13 (or about 1.26% of the population) who were Islamic. 106 (or about 10.30% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 40 individuals (or about 3.89% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Les Bois about 319 or (31.0%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 80 or (7.8%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 80 who completed tertiary schooling, 55.0% were Swiss men, 31.3% were Swiss women, 7.5% were non-Swiss men and 6.3% were non-Swiss women. During the 2009–10 school year, there were a total of 118 students attending 7 classes in Les Bois. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 21 students in the municipality. The municipality had 6 primary classes and 97 students. There are only nine Secondary schools in the canton, so all the students from Les Bois attend their secondary school in another municipality. , there were 3 students in Les Bois who came from another municipality, while 93 residents attended schools outside the municipality. ==References==