Le Chenit is a municipality in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, located in the district of Jura-Nord Vaudois in the Vallée de Joux.
History
Le Chenit is first mentioned in 1489 as Chinit.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.1%. Out of the forested land, 62.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 8.8% is pastures and 19.9% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
It is located in the heart of the La Vallée in the Jura on the French-Swiss border. It is the largest municipality in the upper Vallée de Joux. It consists of the villages of Le Brassus, Le Sentier and L'Orient as well as numerous hamlets. There is no settlement with the name Le Chenit within the municipality of Le Chenit.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a Key upright crossed with a Rifle and a Sword in saltire all Argent.
Demographics
Le Chenit has a population () of . , 22.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 1.6%. It has changed at a rate of 4.6% due to migration and at a rate of -2.5% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population () speaks French (3,807 or 88.6%), with Italian being second most common (124 or 2.9%) and German being third (108 or 2.5%). There are 3 people who speak Romansh.
, there were 1,621 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,074 married individuals, 370 widows or widowers and 232 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 1,966 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.1 persons per household.
there were 2,318 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 721. There were 126 single-room apartments and 513 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 1,917 apartments (82.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 250 apartments (10.8%) were seasonally occupied and 151 apartments (6.5%) were empty.
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Sights
The entire villages of Le Sentier and Le Solliat and the hamlet of Chez-les-Aubert are designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 37.65% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (19.92%), the FDP (10.08%) and the Green Party (8.04%). In the federal election, a total of 1,063 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 40.9%.
Economy
, Le Chenit had an unemployment rate of 5.2%. , there were 100 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 31 businesses involved in this sector. 3,448 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 76 businesses in this sector. 1,184 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 138 businesses in this sector.
, there were 3,809 workers who commuted into the municipality and 400 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 9.5 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 43.0% of the workforce coming into Le Chenit are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 3.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 66.6% used a private car. During the school year, the political district provided pre-school care for a total of 578 children of which 359 children (62.1%) received subsidized pre-school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 253 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 229 students in those schools. There were also 7 students who were home schooled or attended another non-traditional school.
, there were 162 students in Le Chenit who came from another municipality, while 143 residents attended schools outside the municipality.