Concept
Estavayer-le-Lac (ɛstavaje l(ə) lak; Estavalyér-le-Lèc, locally Thavalyi-le-Lé θavaˈʎi lə ˈle) is a former Swiss municipality of the canton of Fribourg, situated on the south shore of Lake Neuchâtel. Estavayer-le-Lac is located between Yverdon and Bern. It is the capital of the district of Broye. The municipality of Font merged on 1 January 2012 into the municipality of Estavayer-le-Lac. On 1 January 2017 Bussy, Morens, Murist, Rueyres-les-Prés, Vernay and Vuissens merged into the new municipality of Estavayer. Estavayer-le-Lac has an area, , of . Of this area, or 55.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 6.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 33.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 4.7% is unproductive land. Following the 2012 merger of Font, the total area increased to . Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 4.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 16.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 7.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 4.4%. Out of the forested land, 4.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 46.9% is used for growing crops and 8.1% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. The municipality is located in the Broye district, on the southern bank of Lake Neuchatel at an elevation of . It is a district capital and a regional administration and business center. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Gules and Argent three bars wavy of the first, overall a double rose of the first barbed and seeded proper. Estavayer-le-Lac has a population () of . , 25.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 19.5%. Migration accounted for 14.7%, while births and deaths accounted for 2.5%. Most of the population () speaks French (3,602 or 81.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common (256 or 5.
