Egerkingen is a municipality in the district of Gäu in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland.
History
Egerkingen is first mentioned in 1201 as in Egrichen. In 1212 it was mentioned as in Egerchingen.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 5.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 9.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 8.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.2% of the area. Out of the forested land, 48.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 17.6% is used for growing crops and 5.3% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
Demographics
Egerkingen has a population () of . , 26.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 14.1%.
Most of the population () speaks German (2,522 or 87.4%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common (81 or 2.8%) and Turkish being third (56 or 1.9%). There are 14 people who speak French and 2 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 892 or about 30.9% were born in Egerkingen and lived there in 2000. There were 680 or 23.6% who were born in the same canton, while 662 or 23.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 535 or 18.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
, there were 1,187 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,359 married individuals, 178 widows or widowers and 160 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,138 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household.
there were 1,202 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 4 rooms of which there were 398. There were 45 single room apartments and 399 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 1,123 apartments (93.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 54 apartments (4.5%) were seasonally occupied and 25 apartments (2.1%) were empty.
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Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 34.29% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the CVP (27.47%), the FDP (24.92%) and the SP (8.23%). In the federal election, a total of 884 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.4%.
Economy
, Egerkingen had an unemployment rate of 4.2%. , there were 30 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 675 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 29 businesses in this sector. 1,815 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 177 businesses in this sector.
, there were 1,826 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,028 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.8 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 9.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 60.2% used a private car. During that school year, there were 73 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 204 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 Egerkingen attend their school in a neighboring municipality.
, there were 67 students in Egerkingen who came from another municipality, while 116 residents attended schools outside the municipality.