Belmont-sur-Lausanne

Belmont-sur-Lausanne (bɛlmɔ̃ syʁ lɔzan, literally Belmont on Lausanne) is a municipality in the district of Lavaux-Oron in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is a suburb of the city of Lausanne. Belmont-sur-Lausanne is first mentioned in 1228 as Belmunt sowie apud bellum Montem. Belmont-sur-Lausanne has an area, , of . Of this area, or 35.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 29.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 33.2% is settled (buildings or roads). Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 23.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.7%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 3.0% of the area Out of the forested land, 26.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 15.8% is used for growing crops and 16.6% is pastures, while 2.6% is used for orchards or vine crops. The municipality was part of the Lausanne District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Belmont-sur-Lausanne became part of the new district of Lavaux-Oron. The municipality is located on a hill above Lake Geneva, east of the Paudèze valley. It consists of the village of Belmont-sur-Lausanne, the hamlet of Rochettaz and the ruins of the village of Les Chaffaises (grinding mill and sawmill). The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a triple mount Or, in chief Argent three May-beetles proper. Belmont-sur-Lausanne has a population () of . , 23.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 41.4%. It has changed at a rate of 29.1% due to migration and at a rate of 11.6% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (2,058 or 87.3%), with German being second most common (139 or 5.9%) and English being third (38 or 1.6%). There are 36 people who speak Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 360 or about 15.