Manno

Manno is first mentioned in 1184. In 1298, the Bishop of Como owned estates in the village. In 1335, the village divided into two sections, Manno superiore and Manno inferiore, both of which belonged to the Kastlanei of Grumo which was a district of Gravesano. The parish of St. Peter's Church is still tied to Gravesano. The Oratory of St. Rocco was built in 1597 on the foundations of an earlier chapel. Until the 1950s, the region was predominantly agricultural. In recent decades, it has grown due an influx of commuters who work in Lugano. Due to good transportation connections numerous industrial and commercial businesses have settled in the municipality. Manno has also become an important service center, since 1992 it has been the seat of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. In 1990-96 it was home to the UBS administrative center for Suglio-Lugano and since 1997 the Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (university of Italian Switzerland). In 2005, the services sector provided nearly four fifths of the jobs in the community. ==Geography==

Manno has an area, , of . Of this area, or 32.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 40.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 36.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.7% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.4% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 10.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 12.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.7% of the area Out of the forested land, 34.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 6.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.2% is used for growing crops, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops and 10.5% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is in the Lugano district, in the Vedeggio valley. It consists of the village center of Manno, a residential section on a nearby hill, and an industrial zone on the valley floor. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Quartered first gules a hand dexter in bend issuant from base sinister second and third sable and fourth gules a chief argent. This is an example of canting as mano is Italian for hand. ==Demographics==

Manno has a population () of . , 18.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 14.8%. Most of the population () speaks Italian (88.3%), with German being second most common (7.1%) and French being third (2.0%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 74 speak German, 21 people speak French, 923 people speak Italian, and 1 person speaks Romansh. The remainder (26 people) speak another language. , the gender distribution of the population was 49.2% male and 50.8% female. The population was made up of 485 Swiss men (38.4% of the population), and 136 (10.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 543 Swiss women (43.0%), and 99 (7.8%) non-Swiss women. , there were 414 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 3.43%. there were 442 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 5 room apartment of which there were 135. There were 10 single room apartments and 135 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 414 apartments (93.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 19 apartments (4.3%) were seasonally occupied and 9 apartments (2.0%) were empty. 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:1100 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:200 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:40 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1692 from:start till:168 text:"168" bar:1850 from:start till:275 text:"275" bar:1860 from:start till:258 text:"258" bar:1870 from:start till:230 text:"230" bar:1880 from:start till:246 text:"246" bar:1890 from:start till:235 text:"235" bar:1900 from:start till:234 text:"234" bar:1910 from:start till:246 text:"246" bar:1920 from:start till:204 text:"204" bar:1930 from:start till:228 text:"228" bar:1941 from:start till:263 text:"263" bar:1950 from:start till:272 text:"272" bar:1960 from:start till:288 text:"288" bar:1970 from:start till:590 text:"590" bar:1980 from:start till:787 text:"787" bar:1990 from:start till:970 text:"970" bar:2000 from:start till:1045 text:"1,045" ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the CVP which received 28.67% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (23.55%), the Ticino League (18.95%) and the SP (12.45%). In the federal election, a total of 413 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.9%. In the Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 785 registered voters in Manno, of which 523 or 66.6% voted. 12 blank ballots and 2 null ballots were cast, leaving 509 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PPD+GenGiova which received 114 or 22.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the SSI (with 104 or 20.4%), the PLRT (with 99 or 19.4%) and the LEGA (with 86 or 16.9%). In the Consiglio di Stato election, 4 blank ballots and 2 null ballots were cast, leaving 517 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the LEGA which received 137 or 26.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the PPD (with 110 or 21.3%), the SSI (with 92 or 17.8%) and the PLRT (with 87 or 16.8%). ==Economy==

Manno hosts Marconi Technologies, Edizioniie Musicali e Discografiche and the new UBS Centre of Competence for Artificial Intelligence, Analysis and Innovation. , Manno had an unemployment rate of 2.8%. , there were 15 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 3 businesses involved in this sector. 659 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 46 businesses in this sector. 2,371 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 209 businesses in this sector. Of the working population, 11.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 70% used a private car. ==Religion==

From the , 854 or 81.7% were Roman Catholic, while 62 or 5.9% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. There are 109 individuals (or about 10.43% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), and 20 individuals (or about 1.91% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Manno about 76.2% of the population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). There were 17 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 17 who attend part-time. The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields. There was 1 student in the professional program. , there were 359 students in Manno who came from another municipality, while 89 residents attended schools outside the municipality. and houses some of the most powerful supercomputers in Switzerland. ==Notable people==

• Silvan Zingg (born 1973) a Swiss boogie woogie, blues, and jazz pianist and, in 2002, the founder of the International Boogie Woogie festival in Lugano ==References==