Riddes

Riddes is a municipality in the district of Martigny in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Riddes is first mentioned in 1001 as Ride. It was previously known its German name Riden, though that is not used any more. Riddes has an area, , of . Of this area, 37.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 37.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.1% is settled (buildings or roads) and 16.4% is unproductive land. The municipality is located in the Martigny district, on the left bank of the Rhone. It consists of the village of Riddes, the hamlet of Auddes, and the vacation resorts of La Tzoumaz in Mayens-de-Riddes and Écône. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Trierced per pale wavy Azure a wheat ear Or in chief two Mullets of Five Argent, Argent a bridge masoned towered Sable and Gules a Grille Or. Riddes has a population () of . , 24.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 25.4%. It has changed at a rate of 18.1% due to migration and at a rate of 1.5% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (1,945 or 88.5%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (106 or 4.8%) and German is the third (72 or 3.3%). There are 33 people who speak Italian and 2 people who speak Romansh. the population was 51.6% male and 48.4% female. The population was made up of 983 Swiss men (37.2% of the population) and 380 (14.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,007 Swiss women (38.1%) and 273 (10.3%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 925 or about 42.1% were born in Riddes and lived there in 2000. There were 654 or 29.8% who were born in the same canton, while 178 or 8.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 354 or 16.1% were born outside of Switzerland. children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 61.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.6%. , there were 912 people who were single and never married in the municipality.