Agarn

Agarn (Walliser German: Agaru) is a municipality in the district of Leukin the German-speaking part of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Agarn is first mentioned in 1252 as Aert. In 1267 it was mentioned as Ayert and in the 16th century it was known as Agaren. Agarn was twice nearly totally burned down, in 1799 and 1899. Agarn has an area, , of . Of this area, or 17.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 33.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 4.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 44.4% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.7%. Out of the forested land, 30.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 4.8% is used for growing crops and 7.3% is pastures, while 2.1% is used for orchards or vine crops and 2.7% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. Of the unproductive areas, 9.3% is unproductive vegetation, 33.3% is too rocky for vegetation and 1.8% of the land is covered by glaciers. The municipality is located in the Leuk district, on an alluvial fan on the southern slope of the Rhone valley. It consists of the former linear village of Agarn. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Vert, a Pile embowed Argent, in dexter chief a cross couped, in sinister base a dove volant of the same. Agarn has a population () of . , 8.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of -0.9%. It has changed at a rate of -1.7% due to migration and at a rate of 1.9% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks German (684 or 90.2%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (35 or 4.6%) and Italian is the third (12 or 1.6%). There are 10 people who speak French. the gender distribution of the population was 51.1% male and 48.9% female.