Chiasso (; ) is a municipality in the district of Mendrisio in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.
As the southernmost of Switzerland's municipalities, Chiasso is on the border with Italy, in front of Ponte Chiasso (a frazione of Como, Italy). The municipality of Chiasso includes the villages of Boffalora, Pedrinate and Seseglio.
In 2007, the three mayors of Chiasso, Vacallo and Morbio Inferiore decided to unite into one commune. The new united commune with a population of ~15,300 people over a territory of , was rejected by the population in November 2007.
History
Chiasso is first mentioned in 1140 as Claso.
Today, a large part of the town is devoted to Chiasso's international railway station and related customs (though some of the border-control responsibilities have been moved to Como, in Italy). There is also a sizeable customs area for traffic passing by road and motorway (both commercial and non-commercial vehicles).
Chiasso offers also a lot of customs-related services. A considerable source of revenue for the town is Italians crossing the border to buy certain goods more cheaply in Switzerland, particularly cigarettes and petrol. It is also a banking centre for Italian clients wishing to keep money within the Swiss banking system.
Starting in 1950, Chiasso became an important financial centre and the economic centre of the Mendrisio region; hence rapid population growth. Since the 1980s, however, population and jobs, especially in the service sector, have shifted into neighbouring communities.
The pedestrian zone
From 2001 to 2005, a new pedestrian zone was created, stretching from the customs area to the municipal building. An enlargement of this zone was proposed by the local administration and put to a public referendum on 24 September 2006.
Pedrinate
Pedrinate was first mentioned in 1291 as Pedrenate, but Roman ruins near the village church indicate a much longer history. It was mentioned in 1335 as part of the village cooperative of Seseglio. The village church of S. Stefano is first mentioned in 1545 and was part of the Balerna parish until the 17th century.
Pedrinate municipality was aggregated in the Chiasso municipality in 1975, along with Seseglio. It is located above Chiasso, on the Penz hill. Pedrinate is the most southern village in Switzerland.
Around Pedrinate there are some vineyards.
Seseglio
Seseglio is on the northern boundary of Chiasso municipality.
Geography
thumb|Border crossing and surrounds at Chiasso
thumb|Aerial view (1946)
Chiasso has an area, , of . Of this area, or 30.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 49.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 36.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.8% is unproductive land.
Of the built-up area, industrial buildings made up 1.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 18.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 14.4%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.7%. Of the forested land, 47.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 7.9% is used for growing crops, 4.3% is used for orchards or vine crops, and 18.4% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is in the Mendrisio district, on the Italian border. Since Pedrinate merged into Chiasso in 1976, it has been the most southerly municipality in Switzerland.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent lion passant holding a letter C gules standing on a carriage entrance azure. The carriage entrance refers to Chiasso location of the ancient road coming from Como and giving access to several places from Chiasso.
Demographics
Chiasso has a population () of . , 36.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. In 1997–2007 the population changed at a rate of −2.8%.
Most of the people () speak Italian (91.3%); German is second most common (2.5%) and Albanian is third (1.2%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 196 speak German, 71 people speak French, 7,048 people speak Italian, and 4 people speak Romansh. The remainder (401 people) speak another language.
, the gender distribution of the population was 47.0% male and 53.0% female. The population was made up of 2,226 Swiss men (28.7% of the population), and 1,420 (18.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 2,774 Swiss women (35.7%), and 1,343 (17.3%) non-Swiss women.
, there were 3,774 private households in the municipality and an average of 2. persons per household.
there were 4,498 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 1,692. There were 316 single-room apartments and 493 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 3,763 apartments (83.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 181 apartments (4.0%) were seasonally occupied and 554 apartments (12.3%) were empty.
The historical population is given in this chart:
<timeline>
Colors=
id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9)
id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
ImageSize = width:1140 height:210
PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
Legend = columns:3 left:200 top:40 columnwidth:160
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:9400
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1900 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:380 start:0
Colors=
id:CH value:green legend:Chiasso
id:PE value:rgb(0,0.7,0.3) legend:Pedrinate
id:BO value:rgb(0.1,0.55,0.35) legend:Total_for_both_independent_municipalities
id:TO value:blue legend:Combined_municipality_after_1976
PlotData=
color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1591 from:start till:160 text:"160" color:CH
bar:1685 from:start till:315 text:"315" color:CH
bar:1769 from:start till:455 text:"455" color:CH
bar:1850 from:start till:1265 text:"1,265" color:CH
bar:1860 from:start till:1696 text:"1,696" color:BO
bar:1870 from:start till:1756 text:"1,756" color:BO
bar:1880 from:start till:1956 text:"1,956" color:BO
bar:1888 from:start till:2841 text:"2,841" color:BO
bar:1900 from:start till:3700 text:"3,700" color:CH
bar:1910 from:start till:6249 text:"6,249" color:BO
bar:1920 from:start till:5940 text:"5,940" color:BO
bar:1930 from:start till:6625 text:"6,625" color:BO
bar:1941 from:start till:6134 text:"6,134" color:BO
bar:1950 from:start till:5744 text:"5744" color:CH
bar:1960 from:start till:7805 text:"7,805" color:BO
bar:1970 from:start till:8868 text:"8,868" color:CH
bar:1980 from:start till:8583 text:"8,583" color:TO
bar:1990 from:start till:8212 text:"8,212" color:TO
bar:2000 from:start till:7720 text:"7,720" color:TO
bar:2010 from:start till:7737 text:"7,737" color:TO
bar:1685 from: 315 till: 475 text:"160" color:PE
bar:1850 from:1265 till:1541 text:"276" color:PE
bar:1900 from:3700 till:4136 text:"436" color:PE
bar:1950 from:5744 till:6237 text:"493" color:PE
bar:1970 from:8868 till:9326 text:"458" color:PE
</timeline>
Notable people
- Antonio Soldini (1854 in Chiasso – 1933), a Swiss-Italian sculptor
- Serge Brignoni (1903 in Chiasso – 2002), a Swiss avant-garde painter and sculptor
- Marco Grassi (born 1968 in Chiasso), a retired Swiss footballer, played 309 league games and 31 for the Switzerland national team
Sights
The entire village of Chiasso is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which got 29.77% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (20.42%), the Ticino League (18.12%) and the CVP (16.54%). In the federal election, a total of 2,050 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 45.6%.
In the Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 4,447 registered voters in Chiasso, of which 2,623 or 59.0% voted. 41 blank ballots and 14 null ballots were cast, leaving 2,568 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PLRT which received 698 or 27.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the PS (with 486 or 18.9%), the SSI (with 456 or 17.8%) and the LEGA (with 406 or 15.8%).
In the Consiglio di Stato election, 30 blank ballots and 21 null ballots were cast, leaving 2,572 valid ballots. The most popular party was the PLRT which received 668 or 26.0% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the PS (with 531 or 20.6%), the LEGA (with 530 or 20.6%) and the SSI (with 417 or 16.2%).
, there were 6,532 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,667 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with ~3.9 workers entering the municipality for everyone leaving. About 21.4% of the workforce coming into Chiasso are coming from outside Switzerland, while 4.0% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 9.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 47.8% used a private car.
Companies based in Chiasso include Lastminute.com Group.
Traffic
thumb|Customs station and border crossing in Chiasso
The fortune of Chiasso is mostly linked to its location on the A2; the main route to St. Gotthard's Tunnel, which connects the southern parts of the Alps and Italy with the northern part of Switzerland and Germany.
The A2 Swiss motorway begins at Chiasso. Long traffic queues often occur on the motorway around the border where vehicles are being checked for contraband.
Religion
thumb|upright|Church of San Vitale
From the , 6,235 or 80.8% were Roman Catholic, while 230 or 3.0% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. There are 754 individuals (or about 9.77% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), and 501 individuals (or about 6.49% of the population) did not answer the question. There were 57 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 98 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 14 students in the professional program.
, there were 265 students in Chiasso who came from another municipality, while 318 residents attended schools outside the municipality.