Cademario is a municipality located in the district of Lugano in the Swiss canton of Ticino. Bordering municipalities are Aranno, Bioggio and Iseo, in the Alto Malcantone area.
History
thumb|left|Parish church of Cademario
Cademario is first mentioned in 1163 as Cademerio. In 1335 it was mentioned as Cadelmario Superiore to distinguish it from Cadelmario Inferiore, which is now Bosco Luganese.
Geography
Cademario has an area, , of . Of this area, or 15.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 78.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 2.3% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 6.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.0%. Out of the forested land, 75.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 6.3% is used for growing crops, while 3.5% is used for orchards or vine crops and 6.1% is used for alpine pastures.
The municipality is located in the Lugano district, in the upper Malcantone valley. It consists of the village of Cademario and the hamlets of Renera and Bogno.
Demographics
Cademario has a population () of . , 16.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 19.9%.
Most of the population () speaks Italian (74.8%), with German being second most common (16.3%) and Portuguese being third (2.3%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 97 speak German, 11 people speak French, 446 people speak Italian, and 1 person speaks Romansh. The remainder (41 people) speak another language.
, the gender distribution of the population was 48.4% male and 51.6% female. The population was made up of 270 Swiss men (39.4% of the population), and 62 (9.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 301 Swiss women (43.9%), and 53 (7.7%) non-Swiss women.
, there were 266 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.2 persons per household.
The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0%. there were 475 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 3 room apartment of which there were 152. There were 43 single room apartments and 126 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 263 apartments (55.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 206 apartments (43.4%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (1.3%) were empty.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! year
! population
|-
| 1599
| 500
|-
| 1696
| 370
|-
| 1801
| 331
|-
| 1900
| 347
|-
| 1950
| 422
|-
| 1990
| 474
|-
| 2000
| 596
|-
|}
Heritage sites of national significance
thumb|Fresco inside the parish church of S. Ambrogio
The Parish Church of S. Ambrogio and the Necropolis a Forcora are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 35.98% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (15.25%), the SP (15.03%) and the SVP (12.95%). In the federal election, a total of 238 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.0%.
In the Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 480 registered voters in Cademario, of which 304 or 63.3% voted. 9 blank ballots and 1 null ballot were cast, leaving 294 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PLRT which received 109 or 37.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the PS (with 55 or 18.7%), the LEGA (with 38 or 12.9%) and the PPD+GenGiova (with 32 or 10.9%).
In the Consiglio di Stato election, 5 blank ballots were cast, leaving 299 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PLRT which received 109 or 36.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the LEGA (with 57 or 19.1%), the PS (with 56 or 18.7%) and the PPD (with 29 or 9.7%). Of the working population, 9.8% used public transportation to get to work, and 58.3% used a private car.
Religion
From the , 430 or 72.1% were Roman Catholic, while 79 or 13.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. There are 72 individuals (or about 12.08% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), and 15 individuals (or about 2.52% of the population) did not answer the question. There were 7 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 7 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 were 2 students in the professional program.
, there were 73 students in Cademario who came from another municipality, while 56 residents attended schools outside the municipality.