1929 marked the end of the forty-year dominance of the Liberals. After the founding of the Christian Social Party in 1961, there was three-year period of tensions between Catholics and Protestants. In 1964 the town inaugurated its new City Hall. Geography Payerne has an area, , of . Of this area, or 59.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 14.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 23.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.9% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 6.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 11.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.1% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.8%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 52.2% is used for growing crops and 6.7% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. From Payerne, the river Broye is running in a large and agricultural valley. The municipality was the capital of the Payerne District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Payerne became part of the new district of Broye-Vully. It consists of the town of Payerne and four hamlets including Vers-chez-Perrin. Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Party, argent and gules. Demographics Payerne has a population () of . , 32.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 15.4%. It has changed at a rate of 14.6% due to migration and at a rate of 1.7% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (6,061 or 83.1%), with Portuguese being second most common (339 or 4.6%) and German being third (251 or 3.4%). There are 219 people who speak Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh. Of the population in the municipality 2,418 or about 33.2% were born in Payerne and lived there in 2000. There were 1,210 or 16.6% who were born in the same canton, while 1,791 or 24.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,771 or 24.3% were born outside of Switzerland. In there were 47 live births to