Gerlafingen

Gerlafingen is a municipality in the district of Wasseramt in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. Gerlafingen is first mentioned in 1278 as Nidergerolvingen. Gerlafingen has an area, , of . Of this area, or 9.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 10.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 82.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.1% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 15.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 44.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 12.4%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.7% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 7.0%. Out of the forested land, 8.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 4.9% is used for growing crops and 3.2% 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, on the eastern bank of the Emme river, about south of Solothurn. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Cramp Azure in bend between two Mullets or one above the other. Gerlafingen has a population () of . , 39.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 2%. It has changed at a rate of 1.8% due to migration and at a rate of 1.4% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks German (3,619 or 77.1%), with Italian being second most common (328 or 7.0%) and Turkish being third (227 or 4.8%). There are 28 people who speak French and 3 people who speak Romansh. the gender distribution of the population was 49.7% male and 50.3% female. The population was made up of 1,397 Swiss men (28.7% of the population) and 1,022 (21.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,552 Swiss women (31.9%) and 893 (18.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 1,160 or about 24.