Leysin

Leysin is a municipality of the canton of Vaud in the Aigle district of Switzerland. It is first mentioned around 1231–32 as Leissins, in 1352 as Leisins.

Leysin has an area, as of 2009, of Of this area, or 34.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 37.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 19.8% is unproductive land. Built up areas: housing and buildings 4.4%; transport infrastructure 2.0%. Forested land: heavily forested 33.3%; orchards or small clusters of trees 3.4%. Agricultural land: alpine pastures 24.7%; other pastureland 10.0%; crops 0.0%
Unproductive areas: unproductive vegetation 12.9%; too rocky for vegetation 6.9%
All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

Leysin has a population of as of 2008, 59.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 37.5%. It has changed at a rate of 39.4% due to migration and at a rate of 2.6% due to births and deaths. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks French (1,683 or 56.1%), with English being the second most common language (356 or 11.9%) and German third (104 or 3.5%). There are 43 people who speak Italian and one person who speaks Romansh. as of 2000, 1,699 of the municipality's inhabitants were single and had never been married. There were 989 married individuals, 126 widows or widowers, and 184 divorced people. as of 2000, there were 937 private households in the municipality, with an average occupancy of 2.1 persons per household. In 2000 there were 2,345 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was three rooms, of which there were 711. There were 344 single room apartments and 289 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 885 (37.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 1,095 (46.7%) were seasonally occupied, and 365 (15.6%) were empty.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 21.19% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SVP (20.41%), the SP (19.92%) and the Green Party (15.84%). In the federal election, a total of 477 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 40.7%.

as of 2010, Leysin had an unemployment rate of 4.8%. as of 2008, there were 39 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 13 businesses involved in this sector. 137 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 26 businesses in this sector. 1,074 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 116 businesses in this sector. In 2000, there were 206 workers who commuted into the municipality and 234 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 10.3% used public transportation to get to work, and 45.3% used a private car. During the school year, the political district provided pre school care for a total of 205 children of which 96 children (46.8%) received subsidized pre school care. The canton's primary school program requires students to attend for four years. There were 175 students in the municipal primary school program. The obligatory lower secondary school program lasts for six years and there were 139 students in those schools. There were also 3 students who were home schooled or attended another non traditional school. as of 2000, there were 39 students in Leysin who came from another municipality, while 98 residents attended schools outside the municipality. It previously hosted two other higher educational institutions that no longer exist; there was once a campus of the Schiller International University located in Leysin as well as the American College of Switzerland which is no longer is in operation. Leysin American School is located here

The Leysin Library (Bibliothèque de Leysin) is located in the municipality, near the communal school. Its collection includes 6,500 publications.

Leysin also has language schools: Ecole Suisse de Langues, Swiss Language Club, and Voxlingua Language School.

Leysin hosted the FIS Snowboard World Cup 2008. Leysin has hosted three world cup events in recent years: Boardercross, Speedskiing, and downhill mountain biking. Leysin also hosted the 2020 winter youth Olympics.

On 26 April 2020 a biodegradable image called "Beyond Crisis" was made by the French artist Saype (Guillaume Legros) to inspire hope for the world after the COVID 19 pandemic. It was unveiled in a meadow near Leysin. The chalk and charcoal powder design covers approximately Viewed from the air in a certain angle, it looks like a 3 dimensional sitting girl with a circular line of stick figures in front of her. The image will last for about two to four weeks before it is covered by grass and washed away by rain.