L'Abbaye

L'Abbaye is a municipality in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, located in the Jura-Nord Vaudois district in the Vallée de Joux. It takes its name from Lac de Joux Abbey, a Premonstratensian monastery. L'Abbaye was created as an independent municipality in 1571 from the municipality of Le Lieu. L'Abbaye has an area, , of . Of this area, or 34.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 60.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.0% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.8% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, 54.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 6.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 9.3% is pastures and 24.7% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. The municipality was part of the La Vallée District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and L'Abbaye became part of the new district of Jura-Nord Vaudois. The municipality is located on the eastern shore of the Lac de Joux at an elevation of between and . It is located at the heart of the vallé de Joux in the Jura. It includes also the villages of Les Bioux and Le Pont. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or, a Bear's Head sable lined Argent ensigned on a Billet Gules bendwise three Escallops bendwise Or. L'Abbaye has a population () of . , 12.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 4.1%. It has changed at a rate of 5.2% due to migration and at a rate of -1.1% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (1,226 or 94.0%), with German being second most common (33 or 2.5%) and Portuguese being third (19 or 1.5%). There are 14 people who speak Italian. Of the population in the municipality 428 or about 32.8% were born in L'Abbaye and lived there in 2000.