Bellach

Bellach is a municipality in the district of Lebern in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. Bellach is first mentioned in 1294 as Bella. In 1307 it was mentioned as Bellacho. Bellach has an area, , of . Of this area, or 47.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 14.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 33.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 4.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 5.3% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 16.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area Out of the forested land, 12.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 35.1% is used for growing crops and 10.6% is pastures, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.8% is in lakes and 3.4% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located in the Lebern district, in the southern foothills of the Jura Mountains, west of Solothurn. It consists of the former villages of Ober-Bellach, Nieder-Bellach and Gärisch, which have all grown together. The municipalities of Biberist, Derendingen, Luterbach, Bellach, Langendorf and Solothurn are considering a merger at a date in the future into the new municipality of with an, , undetermined name. Bellacher Weiher is a pond and nature preserve in the municipality. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure a Horse Argent rampant and harnessed. Bellach has a population () of . , 26.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -0.9%. Most of the population () speaks German (4,191 or 83.4%), with Italian being second most common (210 or 4.2%) and Turkish being third (185 or 3.7%). There are 46 people who speak French and 3 people who speak Romansh. the gender distribution of the population was 49.