The district of Leuk is a district in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a population of .
Municipalities
It contains the following municipalities:
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a Griffin rampant cowed Or langued and armed Argent holding a sword of the last.
Demographics
Leuk has a population of. Most of the population speaks German as their first language. French is the second most common and Albanian is the third. There are 115 people who speak Italian and 8 people who speak Romansh. , the gender distribution of the population was 49.7% male and 50.3% female. The population was made up of 5,218 Swiss men and 879 non-Swiss men. There were 5,430 Swiss women and 742 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the district, 6,201 or about 53.3% were born in Leuk and lived there in 2000. There were 2,995 or 25.8% who were born in the same canton, while 1,012 or 8.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,071 or 9.2% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 4,795 people who were single and never married in the district. There were 5,769 married individuals, 716 widows or widowers and 351 individuals who are divorced. There were 1,296 households that consist of only one person and 382 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 4,625 households that answered this question, 28.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 67 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, there are 1,147 married couples without children, 1,637 married couples with children. There were 225 single parents with a child or children. There were 67 households that were made up of unrelated people and 186 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray id:darkgrey value:gray ImageSize = width:960 height:210 PlotArea = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:12000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:2000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:400 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark: align:center bar:1850 from:start till:4940 text:"4,940" bar:1860 from:start till:5365 text:"5,365" bar:1870 from:start till:5674 text:"5,674" bar:1880 from:start till:6053 text:"6,053" bar:1888 from:start till:6441 text:"6,441" bar:1900 from:start till:6673 text:"6,673" bar:1910 from:start till:8331 text:"8,331" bar:1920 from:start till:7227 text:"7,227" bar:1930 from:start till:7682 text:"7,682" bar:1941 from:start till:8417 text:"8,417" bar:1950 from:start till:8706 text:"8,706" bar:1960 from:start till:9232 text:"9,232" bar:1970 from:start till:10076 text:"10,076" bar:1980 from:start till:10115 text:"10,115" bar:1990 from:start till:11094 text:"11,094" bar:2000 from:start till:11631 text:"11,631"
Mergers and name changes
The municipalities of Guttet and Feschel were combined on 1 October 2000.
The municipalities of Turtmann and Unterems merged on 1 January 2013 into the new municipality of Turtmann-Unterems. The former municipality of Erschmatt merged into the municipality of Leuk.
Politics
In the 2007 federal election, the most popular party was the CVP which received 66.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP, the SP and the FDP. In the federal election, a total of 6,389 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 73.4%. In the 2009 Conseil d'Etat/Staatsrat election, a total of 6,173 votes were cast, of which 304 or about 4.9% were invalid. The voter participation was 72.3%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 54.67%. In the 2007 Swiss Council of States election a total of 6,336 votes were cast, of which 280 or about 4.4% were invalid. The voter participation was 73.4%, which is much more than the cantonal average of 59.88%.
Religion
From the, 10,068 or 86.6% were Roman Catholic, while 496 or 4.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 144 members of an Orthodox church, there were 6 individuals who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 74 individuals who belonged to another Christian church. There were 345 who were Islamic. There were 10 individuals who were Buddhist, 1 person who was Hindu and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 175 belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 342 individuals did not answer the question.
Education
In Leuk, about 4,052 or of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 763 or have completed additional higher education. Of the 763 who completed tertiary schooling, 68.3% were Swiss men, 20.2% were Swiss women, 6.2% were non-Swiss men and 5.4% were non-Swiss women.
