La Chaux () is a municipality of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, located in the district of Morges.
History
La Chaux is first mentioned in 1228 as La Chaus. In 1277 it was mentioned as de Calce. It was known as La Chaux (VD) until 1953.
Geography
La Chaux has an area, , of . Of this area, or 76.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 17.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 6.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.6% of the area Out of the forested land, 15.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 61.9% is used for growing crops and 13.6% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The village of La Chaux is located on the left bank of the Veyron river with the village of Ittens on the right bank of the river.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per fess Argent and Gules, two Maltese Crosses one and one counterchanged.
Demographics
La Chaux has a population () of . , 8.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 17.4%. It has changed at a rate of 11.5% due to migration and at a rate of 6.2% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (317 or 90.1%), with German being second most common (14 or 4.0%) and Portuguese being third (7 or 2.0%). There are 4 people who speak Italian.
, there were 144 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 173 married individuals, 15 widows or widowers and 20 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 139 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.5 persons per household.
there were 143 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 42. There were 2 single room apartments and 50 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 127 apartments (88.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 8 apartments (5.6%) were seasonally occupied and 8 apartments (5.6%) were empty.
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Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 23.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (21.76%), the SP (18.36%) and the Green Party (17.2%). In the federal election, a total of 128 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.2%.
Economy
, La Chaux had an unemployment rate of 3.5%. , there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 15 businesses involved in this sector. 11 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 6 businesses in this sector. 22 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 8 businesses in this sector.
, there were 12 workers who commuted into the municipality and 133 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 11.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 6% used public transportation to get to work, and 69% used a private car. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 631 children of which 203 children (32.2%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 31 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 33 students in those schools.
, there were 16 students in La Chaux who came from another municipality, while 56 residents attended schools outside the municipality.