Meyrin
Description
Meyrin is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It is the nearest Swiss settlement to the main site of the CERN particle physics laboratory.
Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the 1950s, when construction of CERN began just to the north. It is now a commuter town dominated with apartment high-rises, and many of its residents work at CERN or in central Geneva.
Geneva International Airport is partially located in Meyrin.
History
Meyrin is first mentioned in 1153 as Mairin.
Geography
Meyrin has an area, as of 2009, of 9.94 square km. Of this area, 3.54 km2 (1.37 sq mi) or 35.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.43 km2 (0.17 sq mi) or 4.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 5.87 km2 (2.27 sq mi) or 59.1% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.01 km2 (2.5 acres) or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes and 0.08 km2 (20 acres) or 0.8% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 11.1% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 17.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 25.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.5%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 28.5% is used for growing crops and 4.8% is pastures, while 2.3% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in lakes.
The municipality is located on the right bank of the Rhone river and consists of the sub-sections or villages of CERN, Maisonnex, Mategnin, Citadelle, Aéroport - Tour-de-Contrôle, Aéroport - Papillons, Aéroport - Forestier, Cointrin - Les Sapins, Cointrin - Les Ailes, Cointrin - Pré-Bois, ZI Riantbosson.
Heritage sites of national significance
The Mani House and the CERN Archives are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Religion
From the 2000 census, 7,833 or 40.1% were Roman Catholic, while 2,867 or 14.7% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 281 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.44% of the population), there were 28 individuals (or about 0.14% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 363 individuals (or about 1.86% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 60 individuals (or about 0.31% of the population) who were Jewish, and 1,207 (or about 6.17% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 104 individuals who were Buddhist, 51 individuals who were Hindu and 36 individuals who belonged to another church. 4,186 (or about 21.41% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 2,532 individuals (or about 12.95% of the population) did not answer the question.