Cademario is a municipality located in the district of Lugano in the Swiss canton of Ticino.

Bordering municipalities are Aranno, Bioggio and Iseo, in the Alto Malcantone area.

[3] The oldest trace of a settlement in the area was an Iron Age cemetery which was discovered at La Forcora.

The old parish church was built in the Early Middle Ages at a site below the village.

It was enlarged and rebuilt, new frescoes were added, and it was even re-aligned from the southeast to the north.

The parish archive contain a number of records from the Middle Ages, including town charters from 1416 and 1474.

[3] The coat of arms of Cademario represents on a red ground the seated figure of Saint Ambrose (to whom the village church is dedicated) in white pontificals with a gold halo and a gold cross on his mitre, carrying a gold crook and Bible marked with a black cross, and behind him a white scourge with black lashes.

[4] Cademario has an area, as of 1997[update], of 3.96 square kilometers (1.53 sq mi).

[5] The municipality is located in the Lugano district, in the upper Malcantone valley.

Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks Italian (74.8%), with German being second most common (16.3%) and Portuguese being third (2.3%).

[7] The age distribution, as of 2009[update], in Cademario is; 80 children or 11.7% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 68 teenagers or 9.9% are between 10 and 19.

[8] The historical population is given in the following table:[3] The Parish Church of S. Ambrogio and the Necropolis a Forcora are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.

[13] In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 35.98% of the vote.

In the federal election, a total of 238 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.0%.

[14] In the 2007[update] Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 480 registered voters in Cademario, of which 304 or 63.3% voted.

[8] There were 266 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.1% of the workforce.

[17] From the 2000 census[update], 430 or 72.1% were Roman Catholic, while 79 or 13.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.

In the lower secondary school system, students either attend a two-year middle school followed by a two-year pre-apprenticeship or they attend a four-year program to prepare for higher education.

The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields.