Carouge (; Arpitan: Carrojo) is a municipality in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.

History

thumb|left|Aerial view (1963)

Carouge is first mentioned in the Early Middle Ages as Quadruvium and Quatruvio. In 1248 it was mentioned as Carrogium while in the 14th century it was known as Quarrouiz or Quarroggi. In 1445 it was mentioned as Quaroggio.

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 18.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 31.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 20.7%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 4.1% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 8.1%. Out of the forested land, 6.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 3.3% is used for growing crops and 1.5% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

|-

!Nationality || Amount || % total<br />(population)

|-

|||1,972||9.5

|-

|||1,156||5.6

|-

|||1,038||5.0

|-

|||618||3.0

|-

|||196||0.9

|-

|||182||0.9

|-

|||174||0.8

|-

|||167||0.8

|-

|||128||0.6

|-

|||112||0.5

|-

|||98||0.5

|-

|||86||0.4

|-

|||71||0.3

|-

|||69||0.3

|-

|||65||0.3

|-

|||62||0.3

|-

|||60||0.3

|-

|||57||0.3

|-

|||57||0.3

|-

|||52||0.2

|-

|}

thumb|Place de l'Octroi in Carouge

thumb|Market in Carouge

Carouge has a population () of . , 37.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 21%. It has changed at a rate of 15.6% due to migration and at a rate of 5.1% due to births and deaths.

Most of the population () speaks French (13,700 or 77.9%), with Portuguese being second most common (921 or 5.2%) and Italian being third (846 or 4.8%). There are 567 people who speak German and 9 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 3,489 or about 19.8% were born in Carouge and lived there in 2000. There were 3,845 or 21.9% who were born in the same canton, while 2,653 or 15.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6,668 or 37.9% were born outside of Switzerland.

, there were 8,121 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2 persons per household.

there were 8,925 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 2,810. There were 1,587 single room apartments and 815 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 7,927 apartments (88.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 873 apartments (9.8%) were seasonally occupied and 125 apartments (1.4%) were empty.

<timeline>

Colors=

id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9)

id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)

ImageSize = width:1120 height:210

PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100

AlignBars = justify

DateFormat = x.y

Period = from:0 till:18000

TimeAxis = orientation:vertical

AlignBars = justify

ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:4000 start:0

ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:800 start:0

PlotData=

color:yellowgreen width:35 mark:(line,white) align:center

bar:1772 from:start till:767 text:"767"

bar:1779 from:start till:1155 text:"1,155"

bar:1786 from:start till:3188 text:"3,188"

bar:1795 from:start till:3594 text:"3,594"

bar:1799 from:start till:2935 text:"2,935"

bar:1822 from:start till:3571 text:"3,571"

bar:1850 from:start till:4403 text:"4,403"

bar:1860 from:start till:5817 text:"5,817"

bar:1870 from:start till:5602 text:"5,602"

bar:1880 from:start till:5842 text:"5,842"

bar:1888 from:start till:5698 text:"5,698"

bar:1900 from:start till:7437 text:"7,437"

bar:1910 from:start till:7910 text:"7,910"

bar:1920 from:start till:8433 text:"8,433"

bar:1930 from:start till:8035 text:"8,035"

bar:1941 from:start till:7972 text:"7,972"

bar:1950 from:start till:9290 text:"9,290"

bar:1960 from:start till:12760 text:"12,760"

bar:1970 from:start till:14055 text:"14,055"

bar:1980 from:start till:13100 text:"13,100"

bar:1990 from:start till:15036 text:"15,036"

bar:2000 from:start till:17590 text:"17,590"

</timeline>

Heritage sites of national significance

The Archives of Carouge is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Carouge is listed in the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 20.5% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Green Party (18.77%), the SVP (18.09%) and the FDP (10.49%). In the federal election, a total of 4,482 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 46.6%.

For the 2009 Conseil d'Etat election, there were a total of 9,805 registered voters of which 4,612 (47.0%) voted.

, there were 18,589 workers who commuted into the municipality and 6,612 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 2.8 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 16.7% of the workforce coming into Carouge are coming from outside Switzerland, while 0.1% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 32.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 36.2% used a private car. During that school year, there were 377 children who were in a pre-kindergarten class. The canton's school system provides two years of non-mandatory kindergarten and requires students to attend six years of primary school, with some of the children attending smaller, specialized classes. In Carouge there were 619 students in kindergarten or primary school and 83 students were in the special, smaller classes. The secondary school program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling, followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. There were 619 lower secondary students who attended school in Carouge. There were 866 upper secondary students from the municipality along with 217 students who were in a professional, non-university track program. An additional 135 students attended a private school.

, there were 1,577 students in Carouge who came from another municipality, while 1,012 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

  • Alexandre Gavard (1845–1898) politician and President of the Swiss Council of States 1887/1888
  • Emil Gerbeaud (1854-1919) Hungarian confectioner, chocolate producer, industrialist and entrepreneur, owner of Café Gerbeaud in Budapest
  • James Vibert (1872–1942) sculptor, precursor of the Symbolism movement in Switzerland.
  • René Paresce (1886–1937) Swiss-born Italian painter and writer
  • Marcel Bolomet (1905–2003) Swiss-French photographer, first official photographer for the United Nations
  • Georges Cottier (1922–2016) a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
  • Gérald Poussin (born 1946) artist, illustrator, painter, sculptor, animator and comics artist
  • Vincent Rüfli (born 1988) footballer, 220 club caps
  • Jenny Fähndrich (born 1989) professional BMX cyclist, competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics

References

  • Official Website