The Riviera District has an area, as of 1997[update], of 166.49 square kilometers (64.28 sq mi).

[4] As of 2008[update], the gender distribution of the population was 50.0% male and 50.0% female.

[6] The age distribution, as of 2009[update], in the Riviera District is: 1,243 children or 10.0% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 1,388 teenagers or 11.2% are between 10 and 19.

[8] The historical population is given in the following table:[9] In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 29.75% of the vote.

In the federal election, a total of 3,264 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.0%.

[10] In the 2007[update] Ticino Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 6,836 registered voters in the Riviera District, of which 4,550 or 66.6% voted.

[11] From the 2000 census[update], 8,858 or 77.5% were Roman Catholic, while 391 or 3.4% 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 upper secondary school includes several options, but at the end of the upper secondary program, a student will be prepared to enter a trade or to continue on to a university or college.

In Ticino, vocational students may either attend school while working on their internship or apprenticeship (which takes three or four years) or may attend school followed by an internship or apprenticeship (which takes one year as a full-time student or one and a half to two years as a part-time student).

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