The Canton is largely rural and farming remains important, but it also had significant industry from the 17th century due to the hydro-power available at St Sulpice, and Asphalt was mined from 1711 to 1986 at Travers.

Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks French (10,858 or 89.2%) as their first language, German is the second most common (354 or 2.9%) and Italian is the third (337 or 2.8%).

The historical population is given in the following chart:[7] In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 31.57% of the vote.

In the federal election, a total of 3,876 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 46.3%.

[8] From the 2000 census[update], 5,521 or 45.4% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 3,476 or 28.6% were Roman Catholic.

[9] During the 2010-11 school year, there were 12 kindergarten classes with a total of 220 students in District du Val-de-Travers.