Giffers

Geschichte

Giffers is a municipality in the district of Sense in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. It is one of the municipalities with a large majority of German speakers in the mostly French speaking Canton of Fribourg.HistoryGiffers is first mentioned in 1160 as Chivriles. In 1301 it was mentioned as Guifrils and in 1577 it was first called Giffers.GeographyGiffers has an area of. Of this area, 3.38km2 or 64.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.02km2 or 19.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.71km2 or 13.6% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.11km2 or 2.1% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.0%. Out of the forested land, 18.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 19.2% is used for growing crops and 45.1% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.The municipality is located in the Sense district, on the Ärgera/Gérine river 7km south-east of Fribourg. It consists of the linear village of Giffers and the hamlets of Färtschera, Gauchetli, Matte, Neustatt, Popplera and Vorsatz.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Quarterly Or and Gules, four Quatrefoils counterchanged.DemographicsGiffers has a population of., 3.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 6.5%. Migration accounted for 2.1%, while births and deaths accounted for 4.9%.