Ardon is a municipality in the district of Conthey in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. History Ardon is first mentioned at the end of the 11th Century as Ardunum. In 1179 it was mentioned as Ardun. Geography Ardon has an area, , of . Of this area, or 20.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 31.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 6.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 40.8% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.6%. Out of the forested land, 25.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 1.3% is used for growing crops, while 13.8% is used for orchards or vine crops and 4.6% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 8.6% is unproductive vegetation and 32.2% is too rocky for vegetation. The municipality is located on the alluvial fan of the Lizerne, to the right of the Rhone river. It is about from Sion. Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules, a Key Or and a Key Argent in saltire. Demographics Ardon has a population () of . , 32.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of 10.3%. It has changed at a rate of 11.7% due to migration and at a rate of 3.8% due to births and deaths. Most of the population () speaks French (1,859 or 81.0%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (150 or 6.5%) and German is the third (59 or 2.6%). There are 41 people who speak Italian. , the gender distribution of the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 807 Swiss men (31.6% of the population) and 458 (17.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 892 Swiss women (34.9%) and 396 (15.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 839 or about 36.6% were born in Ardon and lived there in 2000. There were 554 or 24.1% who were born in the same canton, while 186 or 8.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and