Mézières (Fribourg)

Geschichte

Mézières is a municipality in the district of Glâne in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.HistoryMézières is first mentioned in 1179 as de Maseriis.On 1 January 2004 the former municipality of Berlens merged into the municipality of Mézières.GeographyMézières has an area, of 8.9km2. Of this area, 7.1km2 or 79.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.23km2 or 13.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.61km2 or 6.8% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.01km2 or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes.Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.1%. Out of the forested land, 12.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 41.7% is used for growing crops and 36.7% is pastures, while 1.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.The municipality is located on the Romont-Bulle road.Coat of armsThe blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale, Argent three bars gemmel Gules and Gules a Grape slipped Or.DemographicsMézières has a population of., 7.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 7.8%. Migration accounted for 8.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.5%.Most of the population speaks French (635 or 94.2%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (16 or 2.4%) and German is the third (11 or 1.6%). There are 2 people who speak Italian.