Villars-Sainte-Croix

Villars-Sainte-Croix is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud, located in the district of Ouest Lausannois. The Order of St John owned the old village church and a hospital which is mentioned in records from before 1272. The buildings still existed as ruins in 1546. Both had been part of the commandry of La Chaux. Villars-Sainte-Croix has an area, , of . Of this area, or 53.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 9.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 37.6% is settled (buildings or roads). Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 12.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 17.6%. Out of the forested land, 7.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 43.6% is used for growing crops and 8.5% is pastures, while 1.8% is used for orchards or vine crops. The municipality was part of the old Morges District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Villars-Sainte-Croix became part of the new district of Ouest Lausannois. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Argent and Gules, a Maltese Cross counterchanged. Villars-Sainte-Croix has a population () of . , 23.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 19.8%. It has changed at a rate of 14.2% due to migration and at a rate of 5.3% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (530 or 88.0%), with Italian being second most common (31 or 5.1%) and German being third (25 or 4.2%). Of the population in the municipality 97 or about 16.1% were born in Villars-Sainte-Croix and lived there in 2000. There were 293 or 48.7% who were born in the same canton, while 72 or 12.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 123 or 20.4% were born outside of Switzerland. In there were 4 live births to Swiss citizens and 2 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there was 1 death of a Swiss citizen.