Emmen, Switzerland

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Emmen

Canton	Lucerne
District	Hochdorf
Coordinates	47°05′N, 8°18′E
Population	27,274 (December 2005)
Area	20.37 km²
Elevation	427 m
Postal code	6032
SFOS number	1024
Website	www.emmen.ch
Localities	Emmen-Dorf, Emmenbrücke
Surrounded by	Buchrain, Ebikon, Eschenbach, Littau , Lucerne , Neuenkirch, Rothenburg
Emmen

Emmen is a municipality in the district of Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.

It is part of the metropolitan area of Lucerne. The municipality also includes Emmenbrücke.

The main industry is the Steel-Industrie, EMMI (Switzerland's biggest Cheese-Corporation) as well as a division of Ruag, the Swiss Army-Supplier. There is the so called ´golden triangle´ of the sewage plant, the airforce-base and the waste incinerating plant.

[edit] The naturalization affair

The city of Emmen went in the international headlines when it revealed, in the year 2001 their citizenship rules. While there is minimal requirements for obtaining Swiss citizenship by naturalisation are set at the federal level such as the requirement to live and work for 12 years and speak the local language, many Swiss cantons and communities like Emmen are free to introduce more stringent requirements. Previously it was done by a committee, that was popularly elected. But Emmen decided to popularly elected the nationalisations by the citizens themselves, after the potential citizens having a series of tests plus having people being publicly interviewed about themselves.

However this back-fired after people voted, many of the ex-Yugoslavs, who were the most common people trying to get citizenship and having one of the highest numbers of ex-Yugoslavs in Switzerland, from getting citizenship. Human rights campaigners said the public interviews and the voting were degrading to people. In July 2003, the practice was ruled discriminatory and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court [1]. Emmen, now has the old system of the naturalization committees.

[edit] Population by nationality

Population by nationality (2000 census)
Nationality	Residents	with dual citizens
Switzerland	18'171	19'456
Serbia-Montenegro	2'332	2'408
Italy	1'299	1'811
Croatia	678	741
Bosnia-Herzegowina	711	727
Spain	500	564
Portugal	449	461
Sri Lanka	286	334
Macedonia	320	326
Germany	212	295
Turkey	152	169
Austria	89	123