Finsterhennen

Finsterhennen is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

History

Finsterhennen is first mentioned around 1220 as ''Freineshun'' and in 1453 as ''Veisten Hennen''. In French it was known as ''Grasse Poule''.

The earliest trace of humans in Finsterhennen are some neolithic ceramics which were found at Steinacker-Büne. Other prehistoric traces include prehistoric items at Moos, flints at Usserfeld, tumuli at (Ischlag-Outer Canal), wooden poles for stilt houses at Längäcker, graves in the gravel pit at Pfaffenholz and graves with just bodies by the railroad tracks. From the Roman era, a cache of tools and items were found at Reben and fragments of what appears to be a Roman road at Moos. During the Middle Ages, the village was part of the ''Herrschaft'' of Erlach. In 1474 Erlach and the surrounding land was acquired by Bern and became the Bernese bailiwick of Erlach.

The village church was part of the parish of Siselen.

The village lay on the Aarberg- Müntschemier road, which ran along a dry moraine through the Grosses Moos marsh. The Jura water correction project of 1874, drained the marsh and allowed development of the Grosses Moos. In 1916 the Biel-Täuffelen-Ins railroad built a rail station between Siselen and Finsterhennen and a small rail stop in Finsterhennen. This allowed small industry to move into the village. Today the local economy is based on grain, vegetable and dairy farming along with small businesses.

Geography

Finsterhennen has an area of . Of this area, or 71.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 16.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 11.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.1% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 4.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.5%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.8% of the area Out of the forested land, 14.9% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 66.9% is used for growing crops and 4.5% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

It is located in the '' Grosses Moos'', a particularly productive area with nearly black soil in the Bernese Seeland.

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

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Argent a Hen Sable crested, beaked, unguled and membered Gules and in chief sinister a Mullet of the last.'' The dark (german: Finster) hen (german: Henne) on the coat of arms makes this an example of canting arms.

Demographics

Finsterhennen has a population () of . , 21.7% 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 17.2%. Migration accounted for 16.9%, while births and deaths accounted for 3.6%.
accessed 30 October 2012

Most of the population () speaks German (376 or 91.5%) as their first language, Portuguese is the second most common (12 or 2.9%) and French is the third (8 or 1.9%). There are 4 people who speak Italian.

, the population was 53.8% male and 46.2% female. The population was made up of 203 Swiss men (41.1% of the population) and 63 (12.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 184 Swiss women (37.2%) and 4 (0.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 180 or about 43.8% were born in Finsterhennen and lived there in 2000. There were 143 or 34.8% who were born in the same canton, while 39 or 9.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 45 or 10.9% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 15%.

, there were 159 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 222 married individuals, 19 widows or widowers and 11 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 41 households that consist of only one person and 9 households with five or more people. , a total of 160 apartments (91.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 7 apartments (4.0%) were seasonally occupied and 8 apartments (4.6%) 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:1020 height:210
PlotArea = top:10 left:100 bottom:50 right:100
AlignBars = justify
DateFormat = x.y
Period = from:0 till:440
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
AlignBars = justify
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:90 start:0
ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:18 start:0
PlotData=
color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1764 from:start till:258 text:"258"
bar:1850 from:start till:373 text:"373"
bar:1860 from:start till:320 text:"320"
bar:1870 from:start till:354 text:"354"
bar:1880 from:start till:366 text:"366"
bar:1888 from:start till:344 text:"344"
bar:1900 from:start till:347 text:"347"
bar:1910 from:start till:350 text:"350"
bar:1920 from:start till:347 text:"347"
bar:1930 from:start till:335 text:"335"
bar:1941 from:start till:312 text:"312"
bar:1950 from:start till:345 text:"345"
bar:1960 from:start till:438 text:"438"
bar:1970 from:start till:393 text:"393"
bar:1980 from:start till:374 text:"374"
bar:1990 from:start till:420 text:"420"
bar:2000 from:start till:411 text:"411"

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 38.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (24.2%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (14.4%) and the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) (4.3%). In the federal election, a total of 156 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 50.8%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

, Finsterhennen had an unemployment rate of 1.24%. , there were a total of 138 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 57 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 17 businesses involved in this sector. 39 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 5 businesses in this sector. 42 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 13 businesses in this sector. There were 238 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.8% of the workforce.

there were a total of 118 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 48, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 38 of which 31 or (81.6%) were in manufacturing and 7 (18.4%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 32. In the tertiary sector; 13 or 40.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 12.5% were in a hotel or restaurant, 7 or 21.9% were in the information industry, 2 or 6.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 12.5% were in education.

, there were 24 workers who commuted into the municipality and 157 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 6.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 12.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 52.1% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 46 or 11.2% were Roman Catholic, while 328 or 79.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 6 individuals (or about 1.46% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 15 (or about 3.65% of the population) who were Islamic. 13 (or about 3.16% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 5 individuals (or about 1.22% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Finsterhennen about 154 or (37.5%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 40 or (9.7%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a '' Fachhochschule''). Of the 40 who completed tertiary schooling, 62.5% were Swiss men, 22.5% 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 56 students attending classes in Finsterhennen. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 12 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 25.0% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 33.3% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 2 primary classes and 44 students. Of the primary students, 13.6% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 18.2% have a different mother language than the classroom language.Schuljahr 2010/11 pdf document
accessed 4 January 2012

, there were 7 students in Finsterhennen who came from another municipality, while 28 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

*

{{Authority control

Municipalities of the canton of Bern