Ziefen

Ziefen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 42.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 48.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.4%. Out of the forested land, 47.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 11.5% is used for growing crops and 26.9% is pastures, while 4.0% 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 Argent, an Eagle displayed Sable fesswise, langued, beaked and membered Or. ==Demographics==

Ziefen has a population () of . , 7.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 12.8%. Most of the population () speaks German (1,269 or 94.1%), with Albanian being second most common (23 or 1.7%) and French being third (15 or 1.1%). , there were 566 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 680 married individuals, 64 widows or widowers and 39 individuals who are divorced. , there were 491 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.7 persons per household. there were 525 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 5 rooms of which there were 152. There were 9 single room apartments and 266 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 479 apartments (91.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 29 apartments (5.5%) were seasonally occupied and 17 apartments (3.2%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.68%. 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:1400 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:1850 from:start till:910 text:"910" bar:1860 from:start till:1014 text:"1,014" bar:1870 from:start till:1016 text:"1,016" bar:1880 from:start till:912 text:"912" bar:1888 from:start till:918 text:"918" bar:1900 from:start till:901 text:"901" bar:1910 from:start till:905 text:"905" bar:1920 from:start till:867 text:"867" bar:1930 from:start till:906 text:"906" bar:1941 from:start till:861 text:"861" bar:1950 from:start till:891 text:"891" bar:1960 from:start till:947 text:"947" bar:1970 from:start till:1012 text:"1,012" bar:1980 from:start till:954 text:"954" bar:1990 from:start till:1056 text:"1,056" bar:2000 from:start till:1349 text:"1,349" ==Heritage sites of national significance==

The House with Heimposamenterei is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Ziefen is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. ==Politics==

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 28.85% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (22.53%), the Green Party (22.41%) and the FDP (11.5%). In the federal election, a total of 562 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 54.0%. ==Economy==

, Ziefen had an unemployment rate of 2.02%. , there were 53 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 19 businesses involved in this sector. 250 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 20 businesses in this sector. 128 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 35 businesses in this sector. , there were 265 workers who commuted into the municipality and 463 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.7 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 9.1% of the workforce coming into Ziefen are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 24.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 41.6% used a private car. ==Religion==

From the , 185 or 13.7% were Roman Catholic, while 840 or 62.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 9 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.67% of the population), there were 2 individuals (or about 0.15% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 94 individuals (or about 6.97% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 34 (or about 2.52% of the population) who were Islamic. There was 1 person who was Buddhist. 140 (or about 10.38% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 44 individuals (or about 3.26% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Ziefen about 507 or (37.6%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 173 or (12.8%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Of the 173 who completed tertiary schooling, 69.9% were Swiss men, 21.4% were Swiss women, 5.8% were non-Swiss men and 2.9% were non-Swiss women. , there were 25 students in Ziefen who came from another municipality, while 141 residents attended schools outside the municipality. ==References==