Brig, Switzerland - Demographics

Demographics

Brig-Glis has a population (as of December 2011) of 12,511. As of 2008, 14.1% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 4.5%. It has changed at a rate of 7.8% due to migration and at a rate of -0.7% due to births and deaths.

Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (10,465 or 90.3%) as their first language, Italian is the second most common (221 or 1.9%) and French is the third (197 or 1.7%). There are 8 people who speak Romansh. The language used in every day transactions is a unique German dialect, only used in this particular canton.

As of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 47.9% male and 52.1% female. The population was made up of 5,049 Swiss men (41.2% of the population) and 826 (6.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 5,477 Swiss women (44.7%) and 902 (7.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 4,456 or about 38.4% were born in Brig-Glis and lived there in 2000. There were 4,077 or 35.2% who were born in the same canton, while 1,154 or 10.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,479 or 12.8% were born outside of Switzerland. The age distribution of the population (as of 2000) is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 14.7%.

As of 2000, there were 5,111 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 5,331 married individuals, 678 widows or widowers and 470 individuals who are divorced.

As of 2000, there were 4,494 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. There were 1,361 households that consist of only one person and 288 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 4,634 households that answered this question, 29.4% were households made up of just one person and there were 63 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 1,233 married couples without children, 1,495 married couples with children There were 263 single parents with a child or children. There were 79 households that were made up of unrelated people and 140 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.

In 2000 there were 700 single family homes (or 44.6% of the total) out of a total of 1,571 inhabited buildings. There were 590 multi-family buildings (37.6%), along with 143 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (9.1%) and 138 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (8.8%).

In 2000, a total of 4,296 apartments (87.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 453 apartments (9.2%) were seasonally occupied and 154 apartments (3.1%) were empty. As of 2009, the construction rate of new housing units was 11.6 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2010, was 0.59%.

The historical population is given in the following chart: