public library and a hostel. At the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of the workers commuted to Locarno. Geography After the 2016 merger Onsernone had an area of . Before the merger Onsernone had an area, (as of the 2004/09 survey) of . Of this area, about 5.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 83.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 1.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and 9.7% is unproductive land. Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by . The municipality is located in the Locarno district, in the lower Onsernone valley, about from Locarno. It consists of the villages of Comologno, Crana and Russo as well as the settlements of Vocaglia, Corbella, Cappellino and Spruga. It was formed in 1995 from the three formerly independent villages. The drawn out merger process began in the 1970s. Demographics Onsernone has a population () of . , 5.1% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of -11.2%. Most of the population () speaks Italian (79.5%), with German being second most common (14.9%) and French being third (4.0%). Of the Swiss national languages (), 48 speak German, 13 people speak French, 256 people speak Italian. The remainder (5 people) speak another language. , the gender distribution of the population was 47.5% male and 52.5% female. The population was made up of 134 Swiss men (45.4% of the population), and 6 (2.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 145 Swiss women (49.2%), and 10 (3.4%) non-Swiss women. In there were 5 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 5 while the foreign population remained the same. There was 1 non-Swiss man and 1 non-Swiss woman who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 1 and the non-Swiss population change was a decrease of 2 people. This represents a population growth rate of -0.3%. The age distribution, , in Onsernone is; 14 children or 4.7% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 23 teenagers or 7.8% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 30 people or 10.2% of the population are