Olten (; High Alemannic: Oute or Olte) is a municipality, a town in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland and the capital of the district of the same name.
Olten grew into a town during the Middle Ages at the location of a bridge over the Aare. After a period of decline, it grew rapidly as a railway town in the 19th century. Its railway station is a major rail hub of Switzerland, located at the junction of lines to Zurich, Basel, Bern, and Lucerne, all of which are within 30 minutes by train, and the town is also home to a depot for Swiss Federal Railways.
History
Significant amounts of artefacts of the Magdalenian (c. 16'000 to 14'000 years ago) have been excavated near Olten. There are also finds dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic, but there is no trace of a settlement, and no ceramic finds; finds dating to the Bronze and Iron Ages are also rather limited. There was a vicus at the site during the Roman era. The name of the settlement is not known, but it seems to have been of a certain importance, presumably reflecting the presence of a bridge across the Aare. The Roman settlement was probably destroyed in the later 3rd century. At the end of the 3rd century, a fortification was built at the bridge-head, on the south-eastern corner of the earlier vicus. This fortress was abandoned in the 4th century, and later replaced by a larger castle, comparable to late Roman fortresses protecting crossings of the Aare at Solothurn and Brugg.
The medieval settlement was built on the foundations of the Roman castle. It is first mentioned in 1201, as Oltun (conjectured as continuing an *Olodunum, with the Gaulish suffix dunum "fort", and a prefix olo-, possibly from a hydronym, thus "river-fort").Der Geschichtsfreund: Mitteilungen des Historischen Vereins der fünf Orte Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden und Zug, vols. 126-130 (1974), p. 257. It was in possession of the counts of Frohburg in the 13th century, passing to Kyburg in 1377 and to Habsburg in 1384. Olten passed under the administration of Basel in 1407, which invested in infrastructure, which was however destroyed in fires in 1411 and 1422. Basel lost interest in rebuilding the town again after the 1422 fire, and sold the settlement to Solothurn in 1426.
Throughout the medieval period, Olten was little more than a fortified bridge-head with some services (blacksmiths, taverns); its total population is estimated to about 500 people for the year 1600. Olten lost its city rights in 1653 as punishment for its support of the rebels in the Swiss Peasant War. This resulted in a lasting tradition of resistance against authority in Olten, and the town welcomed as liberators the French troops in the 1798 invasion. In 1814, Solothurn suppressed another rebellion of Olten patriots against the Swiss Restauration.
Olten first reached a population of 1,000 in the later 18th century. More rapid growth set in after the introduction of the railway in 1856, and the town became an industrial and infrastructural center, reaching 7,000 by 1900. By the 1880s, Olten had developed into a second urban center in the canton, and attracted more infrastructure such as the cantonal hospital (1880), a business school (1912), a cantonal gymnasium (1938). Population tripled again during the 20th century, reaching 21,000 in 1970, but has slightly decreased since.
Geography
Olten has an area, , of . Of this area, or 12.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 41.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 40.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 4.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.5% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics 2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.0% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 15.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 11.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 4.2% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.1%. Out of the forested land, 40.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 6.2% is used for growing crops and 5.9% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The old city of the capital of the Olten district is located in a bend of the river between the Aare and Dünnern rivers. In the 19th Century housing estates were built in the valley on both sides of the Aare between slopes of the Jura Mountains to the north and the Born, Säli und Engelberg mountains to the south.
Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent three Fir Trees Vert trunked Gules issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the second.Flags of the World.com accessed 7 April 2011
Demographics
Olten has a population () of . , 27.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Swiss Federal Statistical Office – Superweb database – Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008 accessed 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 1.2%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 7 April 2011
Most of the population () speaks German (13,855 or 82.7%), with Italian being second most common (844 or 5.0%) and Albanian being third (356 or 2.1%). There are 167 people who speak French and 22 people who speak Romansh.
, the gender distribution of the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 18,728 Swiss men (36.5% of the population) and 6,688 (13.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 20,186 Swiss women (39.3%) and 5,772 (11.2%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Solothurn Statistics – Wohnbevölkerung der Gemeinden nach Nationalität und Geschlecht accessed 11 March 2011 Of the population in the municipality 4,596 or about 27.4% were born in Olten and lived there in 2000. There were 2,920 or 17.4% who were born in the same canton, while 4,585 or 27.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3,904 or 23.3% were born outside of Switzerland.
In there were 93 live births to Swiss citizens and 73 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 184 deaths of Swiss citizens and 18 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 91 while the foreign population increased by 55. There were 6 Swiss women who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there were 82 non-Swiss men and 65 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was a decrease of 101 and the non-Swiss population increased by 37 people. This represents a population growth rate of -0.4%.
The age distribution, , in Olten is; 1,011 children or 6.0% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 2,083 teenagers or 12.4% are between 7 and 19. Of the adult population, 956 people or 5.7% of the population are between 20 and 24 years old. 5,271 people or 31.5% are between 25 and 44, and 3,818 people or 22.8% are between 45 and 64. The senior population distribution is 2,497 people or 14.9% of the population are between 65 and 79 years old and there are 1,121 people or 6.7% who are over 80.Canton of Solothurn Statistics – Wohnbevölkerung nach Gemeinden, Nationalität, Altersgruppen und Zivilstand, Total (Männer + Frauen) accessed 11 March 2011
, there were 6,700 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 7,504 married individuals, 1,356 widows or widowers and 1,197 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 – 2000 accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 8,069 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2. persons per household. There were 3,535 households that consist of only one person and 325 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 8,221 households that answered this question, 43.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 59 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 2,246 married couples without children, 1,683 married couples with children There were 396 single parents with a child or children. There were 150 households that were made up of unrelated people and 152 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
there were 1,439 single family homes (or 49.2% of the total) out of a total of 2,922 inhabited buildings. There were 933 multi-family buildings (31.9%), along with 304 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (10.4%) and 246 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (8.4%). Of the single family homes 379 were built before 1919, while 73 were built between 1990 and 2000. The greatest number of single family homes (702) were built between 1919 and 1945.Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB – Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 – Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011
there were 9,217 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was 3 rooms of which there were 3,158. There were 677 single room apartments and 1,669 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 7,928 apartments (86.0% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 820 apartments (8.9%) were seasonally occupied and 469 apartments (5.1%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 1 new units per 1000 residents.
the average price to rent an average apartment in Olten was 1063.57 Swiss francs (CHF) per month (US$850, £480, €680 approx. exchange rate from 2003). The average rate for a one-room apartment was 592.19 CHF (US$470, £270, €380), a two-room apartment was about 787.80 CHF (US$630, £350, €500), a three-room apartment was about 937.35 CHF (US$750, £420, €600) and a six or more room apartment cost an average of 1694.74 CHF (US$1360, £760, €1080). The average apartment price in Olten was 95.3% of the national average of 1116 CHF.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Rental prices 2003 data accessed 26 May 2010 The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.85%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850-2000 accessed 29 January 2011
Heritage sites of national significance The Old City, which includes a Roman era vicus as well as medieval and early modern developments, Train Station, the prehistoric and Roman era hilltop settlement of Dickenbännli, the covered wooden bridge over the Aare and the Naturmuseum are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance. The entire town of Olten is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.
Culture Every year, on 1 August, a large firework show occurs from boats floating down the river. It is also home to a wooden foot bridge, one of the towns landmarks. In Olten's railway station restaurant, the Gruppe Olten (Olten Group), a group of writers that included Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, was founded, as was the Swiss Alpine Club in 1863.
Politics In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 25.31% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (21.42%), the FDP (18.61%) and the CVP (15.8%). In the federal election, a total of 5,515 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 50.9%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Nationalratswahlen 2007: Stärke der Parteien und Wahlbeteiligung, nach Gemeinden/Bezirk/Canton accessed 28 May 2010
Economy Located at the crossroads of the most important west–east and north–south lines of Switzerland, Olten has been considered a railway town for more than 150 years. The Swiss Federal Railways is running here a central maintenance facility established in 1855 by Swiss Central Railway. The headquarters of SBB Cargo International are in Olten as well.