Prangins

Prangins is first mentioned around 1135-85 as Prengins. Following the fall of the Second French Empire, Prince Napoléon Bonaparte and his wife, Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy, resided in exile at Château de Prangins, where Charles I of Austria and his family would later take residence briefly, beginning 20 May 1919. ==Geography==

Prangins has an area, , of . Of this area, or 54.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 13.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 31.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 18.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.6%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.5%. Out of the forested land, 10.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 42.6% is used for growing crops and 5.1% is pastures, while 7.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.5% is in lakes and 0.2% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located on a terrace on the north shore of the Petit-Lac portion of Lake Geneva. It consists of the village of Prangins and the hamlets of Bénex and Promenthoux. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure, a Tower roofed Argent, in base three Hands of the same shaking issuant from dexter, sinister and base. ==Demographics==

Prangins has a population () of . , 26.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 28.6%. It has changed at a rate of 19.7% due to migration and at a rate of 8.9% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (2,439 or 77.8%), with German being second most common (248 or 7.9%) and English being third (185 or 5.9%). There are 65 people who speak Italian and 4 people who speak Romansh. , there were 1,300 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,589 married individuals, 85 widows or widowers and 159 individuals who are divorced. , there were 1,259 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. , a total of 1,184 apartments (86.0% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 180 apartments (13.1%) were seasonally occupied and 12 apartments (0.9%) 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:3200 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:600 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:120 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:341 text:"341" bar:1850 from:start till:440 text:"440" bar:1860 from:start till:468 text:"468" bar:1870 from:start till:558 text:"558" bar:1880 from:start till:671 text:"671" bar:1888 from:start till:729 text:"729" bar:1900 from:start till:754 text:"754" bar:1910 from:start till:715 text:"715" bar:1920 from:start till:638 text:"638" bar:1930 from:start till:853 text:"853" bar:1941 from:start till:811 text:"811" bar:1950 from:start till:858 text:"858" bar:1960 from:start till:1123 text:"1,123" bar:1970 from:start till:1466 text:"1,466" bar:1980 from:start till:2028 text:"2,028" bar:1990 from:start till:2559 text:"2,559" bar:2000 from:start till:3133 text:"3,133" ==Heritage sites of national significance==

Prangins Castle with the National Museum and the Villa Les Bleuets are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Prangins is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. ==Sights==

The HBG facility for time signal transmissions is near Prangins. Prangins also hosts one of the branches of the Swiss National Museum. The Aerodrome La Côte (ICAO: LSGP) is situated between Prangins and Gland which hosted a fly-in in 2009. ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 18.77% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (18.76%), the Green Party (16.53%) and the LPS Party (13.86%). In the federal election, a total of 960 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 47.2%. ==Economy==

, Prangins had an unemployment rate of 5%. , there were 36 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 11 businesses involved in this sector. 746 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 17 businesses in this sector. 550 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 85 businesses in this sector. , there were 1,017 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,312 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 7.3% of the workforce coming into Prangins are coming from outside Switzerland, while 0.1% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 18.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 65.8% used a private car. ==Religion==

From the , 1,092 or 34.9% were Roman Catholic, while 1,085 or 34.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 26 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.83% of the population), there were 4 individuals (or about 0.13% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 141 individuals (or about 4.50% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 9 individuals (or about 0.29% of the population) who were Jewish, and 54 (or about 1.72% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 2 individuals who were Buddhist, 8 individuals who were Hindu and 7 individuals who belonged to another church. 542 (or about 17.30% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 213 individuals (or about 6.80% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Prangins about 1,073 or (34.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 744 or (23.7%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 744 who completed tertiary schooling, 42.2% were Swiss men, 27.3% were Swiss women, 16.9% were non-Swiss men and 13.6% were non-Swiss women. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 1,249 children of which 563 children (45.1%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 243 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 196 students in those schools. There were also 4 students who were home schooled or attended another non-traditional school. Prangins is home to 1 museum, the Musée national suisse - Château de Prangins. In 2009 it was visited by 54,703 visitors (the average in previous years was 53,583). , there were 18 students in Prangins who came from another municipality, while 293 residents attended schools outside the municipality. == References ==