Gäu District

Geschichte

Gäu District is one of the ten districts of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland, situated in the centre of the canton. It has a population of. Together with Thal District, it forms the Amtei (electoral district) of Thal-Gäu.MunicipalitiesGäu District contains the following municipalities:GeographyGäu has an area, of 62.01km2. Of this area, 27.74km2 or 44.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 23.36km2 or 37.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 10.41km2 or 16.8% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.44km2 or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes and 0.06km2 or 0.1% is unproductive land.Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.1% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area Out of the forested land, 36.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 41.9% is used for growing crops, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops and 1.6% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the district is flowing water.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Tierced per fess Gules Argent and Sable.DemographicsGäu has a population of.Most of the population speaks German (15,113 or 90.3%), with Albanian being second most common (353 or 2.1%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (309 or 1.8%). There are 82 people who speak French and 7 people who speak Romansh.