Oberkirch (Lucerne)

Geschichte

Oberkirch is a municipality in the district of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.HistoryOberkirch is first mentioned in 1036 as Ecclesia superior though this comes from a 14th Century copy of the earlier document. In 1052 it was mentioned as Obernkilch.GeographyOberkirch has an area of 9.1km2. Of this area, 74.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 13.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 12.1% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.3%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains)., 13.5% of the total land area was forested. Of the agricultural land, 64.98% is used for farming or pastures, while 9.11% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the settled areas, 6.37% is covered with buildings, 0.99% is industrial, 0.44% is classed as special developments, 0.66% is parks or greenbelts and 3.62% is transportation infrastructure. Of the unproductive areas, and 0.33% is other unproductive land.The municipality is located southwest of Lake Sempach (Sempachersee). It consists of the village of Oberkirch and the hamlets of Dogelzwil, Oberhof, Unterhof and Zellhüsli.DemographicsOberkirch has a population of 3,317, of which 10.3% are foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 32.1%. Most of the population speaks German (92.7%), with Serbo-Croatian being second most common ( 1.6%) and Albanian being third ( 1.4%).In the 2007 election the most popular party was the CVP which received 31.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (28.4%), the SVP (19.7%) and the Green Party (10.4%).