Etziken

Etziken is a municipality in the district of Wasseramt in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. Etziken is first mentioned in 1252 as Ezzinchon. In 1342 it was mentioned as Ertzenkon. Etziken has an area, , of . Of this area, or 53.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 13.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 8.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.8%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 41.1% is used for growing crops and 11.8% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Wasseramt district, on the Solothurn-Herzogenbuchsee in the hills created from a terminal moraine. It consists of the linear village of Etziken. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Water Tower Argent issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Vert. Etziken has a population () of . , 5.1% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -7.1%. It has changed at a rate of -6.7% due to migration and at a rate of -0.6% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks German (755 or 96.4%), with French being second most common (6 or 0.8%) and Italian being third (5 or 0.6%). the gender distribution of the population was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. The population was made up of 347 Swiss men (45.8% of the population) and 26 (3.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 365 Swiss women (48.2%) and 19 (2.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 275 or about 35.1% were born in Etziken and lived there in 2000. There were 257 or 32.8% who were born in the same canton, while 189 or 24.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 41 or 5.2% were born outside of Switzerland. In there were 4 live births to Swiss citizens and 1 birth to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 8 deaths of Swiss citizens.