Cerniat

Geschichte

Cerniat is a former municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Cerniat and Charmey merged into the new municipality of Val-de-Charmey.HistoryCerniat is first mentioned in 1288 as Sernia.GeographyBefore the merger, Cerniat had a total area of 33.7km2. Of this area, 13.78km2 or 40.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 18.47km2 or 54.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.79km2 or 2.3% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.26km2 or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and 0.43km2 or 1.3% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, 51.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land 7.0% is pastures and 33.9% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Bend Argent between an Orb in chief and a Cattle in base Or.DemographicsCerniat had a population of 346., 5.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of -0.9%. Migration accounted for -3%, while births and deaths accounted for -2.7%.Most of the population speaks French as their first language, German is the second most common and Italian is the third .