Concept
Ormont-Dessous is a municipality of the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, located in the district of Aigle. Ormont-Dessous is first mentioned in 1200 as Ormont. In 1564 it was mentioned as Bas-Ormont. The German name Ormund is no longer used. Ormont-Dessous has an area, , of . Of this area, or 38.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 45.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.0% is either rivers or lakes and or 10.5% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 1.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.7%. Out of the forested land, 37.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.0% is used for growing crops and 10.6% is pastures and 28.3% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 1.8% is in lakes and 0.2% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 7.2% is unproductive vegetation and 3.2% is too rocky for vegetation. The municipality is located in the Aigle district, in the middle of the Grande-Eau valley. It consists of the villages of Ormont, Dessous, Le Sépey and La Forclaz as well as scattered settlements at Cergnat, Matélon, La Comballaz and Les Voëttes. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, from three Hills Or rising a Tower Argent masoned and windowed Sable between four, two and two, Mullets of Five Argent. This coat of arms might be an example of canting with Ormont-Dessous being read as Or-Mont-Dessous or Gold(en)-Mount-Below. Ormont-Dessous has a population () of . , 9.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 3.4%. It has changed at a rate of 9.2% due to migration and at a rate of -5.5% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (1,000 or 93.0%), with German being second most common (33 or 3.1%) and Portuguese being third (16 or 1.5%). There are 8 people who speak Italian.
