thumb|entrance to the village of Derendingen
thumb|Roman Catholic and Evangelical Reformed Churches of Derendingen
thumb|Derendingen SO - old allemannic-style farmhouse, called "Aebi Haus" or "Aebi Hütte"
thumb|Derendingen SO, intersection No. 2 Biberiststrasse and Hauptstrasse, aerial photograph dated 1965
thumb|old postcard of Derendingen dated about 1920
thumb|Aerial view (1970)
Derendingen is a municipality in the district of Wasseramt in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.
History
Derendingen is first mentioned in 1264 as Teradingen. Originally an agricultural community, it became a centre of textiles industry in the 1860s. The housing estate Elsässli is now a monument.
Geography
Derendingen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 39.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 26.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 32.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.4% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 18.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.1%. Out of the forested land, 24.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 29.7% is used for growing crops and 8.0% is pastures, while 1.4% 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 three bends Gules and overall a Fish naiant Azure.
Demographics
Derendingen has a population () of . , 26.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 3.8%. It has changed at a rate of 5.4% due to migration and at a rate of 0.8% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks German (4,942 or 85.1%), with Italian being second most common (346 or 6.0%) and Albanian being third (134 or 2.3%). There are 38 people who speak French and 1 person who speaks Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 1,589 or about 27.3% were born in Derendingen and lived there in 2000. There were 1,647 or 28.3% who were born in the same canton, while 1,272 or 21.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,094 or 18.8% were born outside of Switzerland.
, there were 2,358 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,699 married individuals, 369 widows or widowers and 384 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 2,453 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household.
there were 2,627 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 920. There were 77 single room apartments and 682 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 2,375 apartments (90.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 135 apartments (5.1%) were seasonally occupied and 117 apartments (4.5%) were empty.
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Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 25.34% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (25.02%), the FDP (20.64%) and the CVP (16.8%). In the federal election, a total of 1,686 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 46.2%.
Economy
, Derendingen had an unemployment rate of 5.1%. , there were 24 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 13 businesses involved in this sector. 675 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 57 businesses in this sector. 1,012 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 154 businesses in this sector.
, there were 1,520 workers who commuted into the municipality and 2,321 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 15.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 56.8% used a private car. During that school year, there were 114 children in kindergarten. The canton's school system requires students to attend six years of primary school, with some of the children attending smaller, specialized classes. In the municipality there were 444 students in primary school. The secondary school program consists of three lower, obligatory years of schooling, followed by three to five years of optional, advanced schools. All the lower secondary students from Derendingen attend their school in a neighboring municipality.
, there were 320 students in Derendingen who came from another municipality, while 138 residents attended schools outside the municipality.