Olten District - Demographics

Demographics

Olten has a population (as of December 2011) of 51,744.

Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (42,187 or 86.1%), with Italian being second most common (2,130 or 4.3%) and Albanian being third (855 or 1.7%). There are 377 people who speak French and 48 people who speak Romansh.

As of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 18,728 Swiss men (36.5% of the population) and 6,688 (13.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 20,186 Swiss women (39.3%) and 5,772 (11.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district 12,962 or about 26.5% were born in Olten and lived there in 2000. There were 11,079 or 22.6% who were born in the same canton, while 13,820 or 28.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9,397 or 19.2% were born outside of Switzerland.

In 2008 there were 277 live births to Swiss citizens and 163 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 413 deaths of Swiss citizens and 34 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 136 while the foreign population increased by 129. There were 38 Swiss men and 31 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 214 non-Swiss men and 146 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was a decrease of 119 and the non-Swiss population increased by 284 people. This represents a population growth rate of 0.3%.

As of 2000, there were 19,413 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 23,656 married individuals, 3,173 widows or widowers and 2,744 individuals who are divorced.

There were 7,298 households that consist of only one person and 1,254 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 21,532 households that answered this question, 33.9% were households made up of just one person and 162 were adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 6,311 married couples without children, 6,134 married couples with children There were 1,028 single parents with a child or children. There were 305 households that were made up unrelated people and 294 households that were made some sort of institution or another collective housing.

The historical population is given in the following chart: