Canton Zug, 19.03.2019

Canton third in country when it comes to density of population

With the high cost of land and the canton’s current policy to build new residential property to a greater density than hitherto, it will not be surprising to read that the canton comes third in a list of those relating to density of the working and residential population over a given area.


Less land has been allocated to residential development in recent years, even though the number of people living and working in the canton has increased considerably. In figures published by the federal authorities relating to the year 2017, the average amount of space in built-up zones per person living or working in Zug amounts to 84.3 square metres, whereas the Swiss average is 149.4 square metres.


With this figure of 84.3 square metres, the canton of Zug, as mentioned, comes in third place, behind the City of Basel at 51.6 and Geneva at 69.0 square metres, coming ahead even of Zurich, in fourth place at 109.7 square metres.


As pointed out by Rolf Giezendanner, the deputy departmental head at the Federal Office of Spatial Development, it is only natural that more rural cantons are less densely populated than city cantons, hence the city of Basel heads the list with that of Jura at the bottom. The reason why Zug features so high on the list is on account of the high number of work places there are in the canton, and in particular those in offices, the high number of people working in them pushing up the density figures.

This is in contrast to cantons where work activity is different, where, for example, there is much automation in industry, a factor which leads to less density when the working population is taken into account, just as the prevalence of second homes in certain cantons reduces the level of density in such statistics. This also applied to cantons where people are moving away to work.


That density in this regard is high in Zug does not just relate to policies enacted in recent years; some date back to 1987, the value of countryside considered important even in those days, as René Hutter of the Zug Cantonal Planning Office confirmed. Regulations were tightened further in 2013, with residential building permission granted only to areas “filling in” existing developments.


As mentioned, the high value of land here is another factor when it comes to density, with more high-rise developments being built, notably in areas where property dating from the Seventies and Eighties has since been demolished.


Not that locals are against further urban sprawl, either. When it came to a recent referendum in Menzingen over using land for the development of housing, residents voted against it.