Biberist

Biberist is a municipality in the district of Wasseramt in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. Biberist is first mentioned in 762 as Biberussa. In 1300 Ober- and Unterbiberist were mentioned as ze beiden Biberschon. During the Helvetic Republic it was the capital of the Biberist district. Biberist has an area, , of . Of this area, or 36.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 34.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 26.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.2% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 4.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 12.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.5%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.1%. Out of the forested land, 32.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 26.3% is used for growing crops and 8.9% is pastures, while 1.6% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Wasseramt district, between the Emme and Aare rivers south of Solothurn. The two villages of Ober- and Unterbiberist were merged into a single municipality in 1857. 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. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per fess Gules and Argent two Cramps in Saltire counterchanged. Biberist has a population () of . , 20.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 4.7%. It has changed at a rate of 7.3% due to migration and at a rate of -2.2% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks German (6,644 or 87.4%), with Italian being second most common (277 or 3.6%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (175 or 2.3%). There are 63 people who speak French and 3 people who speak Romansh.