Concept
Marly (maʁli; Marli maʁˈli) is a municipality in the district of Sarine in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. Its German name is Mertenlach, but this is no longer common, although still in regional use. It was formed through the 1970 merger of Marly-le-Grand and Marly-le-Petit and the 1976 addition of the former municipality of Chésalles. Marly is first mentioned in 1055 as in marlensi. Marly has an area, , of . Of this area, or 35.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 29.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 30.8% is settled (buildings or roads), or 4.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 4.2% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 17.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.4%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.3% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.8%. Out of the forested land, 27.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 19.2% is used for growing crops and 15.8% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the Sarine district, south of Fribourg on the Gérine river. It is an industrial town and regional center. It consists of the villages of Marly-le Grand, Marly-le Petit and Chésalles. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a bar wavy Azure and overall a Knight statant armoured Argent holding a Pike in dexter and a Sword seafed on a Belt in sinister and in chief sinister three alder-tree leaves Or slipped conjoined. The coat of arms was changed in 1991 to reflect the earlier mergers that formed Marly. The blue wavy stripe symbolizes the river Gerine. Marly has a population () of . , 22.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 12.4%. Migration accounted for 3.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 6.
