Arni, Bern

Arni is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

History

Arni is first mentioned in 1185 as ''Arne''. The village was probably acquired by Bern in 1399 and placed in the Signau ''Herrschaft''. The ''Herrschaft'' was abolished in 1529 and the village became a Bernese bailiwick. Following the 1798 French invasion, Arni became part of the Helvetic Republic district of Höchstetten. When the Helvetic Republic collapsed in 1803, with the Act of Mediation Arni was assigned to the Konolfingen district. Today the village is still mostly agricultural, with nearly half of all jobs in farming.

Geography

Arni has an area of . Of this area, or 68.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.5%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 35.9% is used for growing crops and 31.3% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The municipality includes the village of Arni, the industrial center of Arnisäge and the hamlets of Lütiwil and Roth.

On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Konolfingen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
accessed 4 April 2011

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Per Fess Argent a Fleur de Lis Or and of the second a Crescent of the first.''

Demographics

Arni has a population () of . , 3.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012 Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of -5.3%. Migration accounted for -8%, while births and deaths accounted for 1%.
accessed 12 April 2013

Most of the population () speaks German (960 or 97.0%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (6 or 0.6%) and French is the third (5 or 0.5%). There are 3 people who speak Italian.

, the population was 50.7% male and 49.3% female. The population was made up of 461 Swiss men (48.8% of the population) and 18 (1.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 452 Swiss women (47.8%) and 14 (1.5%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 446 or about 45.1% were born in Arni and lived there in 2000. There were 360 or 36.4% who were born in the same canton, while 111 or 11.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 51 or 5.2% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15.9%.

, there were 447 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 473 married individuals, 47 widows or widowers and 23 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 84 households that consist of only one person and 50 households with five or more people. , a total of 353 apartments (90.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 28 apartments (7.1%) were seasonally occupied and 11 apartments (2.8%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011

The historical population is given in the following chart:

Colors=
id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9)
id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
ImageSize = width: auto height:200 barincrement:45
PlotArea = top:20 left:35 bottom:20 right:35
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:1400
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:300 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:60 start:0
PlotData=
color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1764 from:start till:793 text:"793"
bar:1850 from:start till:1331 text:"1,331"
bar:1860 from:start till:1380 text:"1,380"
bar:1870 from:start till:1364 text:"1,364"
bar:1880 from:start till:1267 text:"1,267"
bar:1888 from:start till:1258 text:"1,258"
bar:1900 from:start till:1124 text:"1,124"
bar:1910 from:start till:1071 text:"1,071"
bar:1920 from:start till:1124 text:"1,124"
bar:1930 from:start till:1082 text:"1,082"
bar:1941 from:start till:1107 text:"1,107"
bar:1950 from:start till:1172 text:"1,172"
bar:1960 from:start till:1100 text:"1,100"
bar:1970 from:start till:966 text:"966"
bar:1980 from:start till:902 text:"902"
bar:1990 from:start till:956 text:"956"
bar:2000 from:start till:990 text:"990"

Sights

The entire hamlet of Hämlismatt is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 52.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (15.2%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (7.3%) and the Green Party (6.1%). In the federal election, a total of 374 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 47.0%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

, Arni had an unemployment rate of 1.17%. , there were a total of 279 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 147 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 55 businesses involved in this sector. 41 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 15 businesses in this sector. 91 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 13 businesses in this sector. There were 524 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.2% of the workforce.

there were a total of 212 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 99, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 37 of which 19 or (51.4%) were in manufacturing and 18 (48.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 76. In the tertiary sector; 52 or 68.4% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 2 or 2.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 7 or 9.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1 was in the information industry, 3 or 3.9% were technical professionals or scientists, 9 or 11.8% were in education and 1 was in health care.

, there were 39 workers who commuted into the municipality and 304 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 7.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 7.3% used public transportation to get to work, and 54.4% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 42 or 4.2% were Roman Catholic, while 825 or 83.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.30% of the population), and there were 80 individuals (or about 8.08% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 18 (or about 1.82% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 45 (or about 4.55% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 16 individuals (or about 1.62% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Arni about 383 or (38.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 94 or (9.5%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a ''Fachhochschule''). Of the 94 who completed tertiary schooling, 68.1% were Swiss men, 26.6% were Swiss women.

The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend additional schooling or they may enter an apprenticeship.

During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 100 students attending classes in Arni. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 21 students in the municipality. The municipality had 3 primary classes and 64 students. During the same year, there was one lower secondary class with a total of 15 students. There were 6.7% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 6.7% have a different mother language than the classroom language.Schuljahr 2010/11 pdf document
accessed 4 January 2012

, there were 11 students in Arni who came from another municipality, while 47 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

*

{{Authority control

Municipalities of the canton of Bern
Articles which contain graphical timelines