Chippis

Chippis is a municipality in the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Chippis is first mentioned in the 11th century as Sepils. Chippis has an area, , of . Of this area, or 5.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 59.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 24.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 3.5% is either rivers or lakes and or 8.6% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.5%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.5%. Out of the forested land, 57.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 3.5% is pastures, while 2.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 3.0% is unproductive vegetation and 5.6% is too rocky for vegetation. The municipality is located in the Sierre district, on the left bank of the Rhone river. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per fess by a bar wavy Argent chief per pale by a pallet wavy of the same, Gules a Cog-wheel of the first, Azure a church of the first and Gules three Mullets of Five of the first. Chippis has a population () of . , 38.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010 ) the population has changed at a rate of 2.6%. It has changed at a rate of -0.8% due to migration and at a rate of 2.1% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (1,156 or 77.5%) as their first language, German is the second most common (107 or 7.2%) and Italian is the third (91 or 6.1%). There is 1 person who speaks Romansh. the population was 51.8% male and 48.2% female. The population was made up of 462 Swiss men (29.2% of the population) and 357 (22.