Gelterfingen is a former

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of

Bern german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese , neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen , website ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Gelterfingen, Mühledorf and

Noflen Noflen is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Gelterfingen, Mühledorf and Noflen merged into the municipality of Kirchdorf. ...

merged into the municipality of Kirchdorf.

History

Gelterfingen is first mentioned in 1345 as ''Geltolfingen''. The oldest trace of a settlement in the area are several

Hallstatt Hallstatt ( , , ) is a small town in the district of Gmunden, in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Situated between the southwestern shore of Hallstätter See and the steep slopes of the Dachstein massif, the town lies in the Salzkammergut ...

graves which were discovered at Hole. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Gelterfingen was owned by the

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire ...

von Kramburg. In 1373 it was acquired by the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...

Münchenbuchsee Commandery The Münchenbuchsee Commandery was a medieval commandery of the Knights Hospitaller in the Swiss municipality of Münchenbuchsee in the Canton of Bern. History During the 12th century, the area around Münchenbuchsee was part of the lands of th ...

. In 1528,

adopted the new faith of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, secularized the Commandery and acquired all its lands including Gelterfingen. Under Bernese control it was combined into a court with Kramburg and placed into the

Seftigen Seftigen is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Seftigen is first mentioned in 1277 as ''Seftingen''. The oldest trace of a settlement in the area is a Roman estate house discovere ...

district. The swampy valley floor of the

Gürbetal Gürbetal (Gürbe Valley) in Switzerland lies between the towns of Bern and Thun, west of the Aare. It contains the municipality of Seftigen and those that surround it. The valley is named after the river Gürbe, which flows through it. The largest ...

forced the village farmers to raise their crops on the surrounding hills. The valley floor was only used as a pasture. The Gürbe and Müsche river correction projects (1855–1911) and a drainage project in (1942–51) opened up rich farm land on the valley floor. The construction of a station on the Gürbetal Railroad in the village helped open up the village. Today the about half of the working residents commute to jobs outside the municipality. The main industry in the municipality is cabbage cultivation and other farming.

Geography

Gelterfingen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 69.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 24.1% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 5.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 During the same year, housing and buildings made up 2.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.0%. A total of 22.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 39.8% is used for growing crops and 27.8% is pasturage, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located in the

on the south-west slope of

Belpberg Belpberg is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The municipality of Belpberg merged on 1 January 2012 into the municipality of Belp.hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. Its size relative to a parish can depend on the administration and region. A hamlet may be considered to be a smaller settlement or subdivision or satellite entity to a lar ...

of Kramburg and Eggenhorn. The municipalities of Gelterfingen,

Gerzensee Gerzensee is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The town is named after its lake: Gerzensee. History Gerzensee is first mentioned in 1228 as ''Gercentse''. The oldest trac ...

, Kirchdorf, Mühledorf and

are considering a merger on 1 January 2017 into the new municipality with an, , undetermined name.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 12 December 2013 On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Seftigen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.
accessed 4 April 2011

Coat of arms

The

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The vis ...

of the municipal

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

is ''Per pale Gules and Argent a Mount of ten Coupeaux floatant counterchanged.''

Demographics

Gelterfingen has a population () of . , 2.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last year (2010-2011) the population has changed at a rate of -1.2%. Migration accounted for -2.0%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.0%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 21 March 2014 Most of the population () speaks

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

(247 or 98.8%) as their first language,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

is the second most common (1 or 0.4%) and

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

is the third (1 or 0.4%). , the population was 51.2% male and 48.8% female. The population was made up of 121 Swiss men (49.2% of the population) and 5 (2.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 116 Swiss women (47.2%) and 4 (1.6%) non-Swiss women.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 101 or about 40.4% were born in Gelterfingen and lived there in 2000. There were 122 or 48.8% who were born in the same canton, while 14 or 5.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6 or 2.4% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 12.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 23.9%. , there were 98 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 119 married individuals, 19 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 45 households that consist of only one person and 4 households with five or more people. , a total of 107 apartments (88.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 13 apartments (10.7%) were seasonally occupied and one apartment was empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 4.1 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.4%. In 2011, single family homes made up 29.6% of the total housing in the municipality. 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:40 bottom:20 right:35 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:330 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:70 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:14 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:174 text:"174" bar:1850 from:start till:299 text:"299" bar:1860 from:start till:264 text:"264" bar:1870 from:start till:321 text:"321" bar:1880 from:start till:273 text:"273" bar:1888 from:start till:244 text:"244" bar:1900 from:start till:243 text:"243" bar:1910 from:start till:268 text:"268" bar:1920 from:start till:295 text:"295" bar:1930 from:start till:273 text:"273" bar:1941 from:start till:278 text:"278" bar:1950 from:start till:297 text:"297" bar:1960 from:start till:273 text:"273" bar:1970 from:start till:309 text:"309" bar:1980 from:start till:277 text:"277" bar:1990 from:start till:303 text:"303" bar:2000 from:start till:250 text:"250" bar:2010 from:start till:243 text:"243"

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 54.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (17.2%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (15.8%) and another local party (4.7%). In the federal election, a total of 128 votes were cast, and the

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Unive ...

was 59.3%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

, Gelterfingen had an unemployment rate of 1.21%. , there were a total of 78 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 43 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 16 businesses involved in this sector. 20 people were employed in the

secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construction. ...

and there were 3 businesses in this sector. 15 people were employed in the

tertiary sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...

, with 7 businesses in this sector. There were 137 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 44.5% of the workforce. there were a total of 51

full-time equivalent Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit that indicates the workload of an employee, employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often used to me ...

jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 25, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 16 of which 6 or (37.5%) were in manufacturing and 3 (18.8%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 10. In the tertiary sector; 9 or 90.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, and 1 was in health care. , there were 25 workers who commuted into the municipality and 86 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 3.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 51 workers (67.1% of the 76 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Gelterfingen.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 16.8% used public transportation to get to work, and 45.3% used a private car. In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Gelterfingen making 150,000 CHF was 12%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 17.6%. For comparison, the average rate for the entire canton in the same year, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide average was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively. In 2009 there were a total of 130 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 12 made over 75,000 CHF per year. The greatest number of workers, 48, made between 50,000 and 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Gelterfingen was 107,158 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 1.2% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Bezüger/-innen von Sozialhilfeleistungen (Sozialhilfeempfänger/-innen), 2011
accessed 18 June 2013

Religion

From the , 196 or 78.4% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), (EKS); french: Église évangélique réformée de Suisse (EERS); it, Chiesa evangelica riformata in Svizzera (CERiS); rm, Baselgia evangelica refurmada da la Svizra (BRRS) formerly named Federation o ...

, while 11 or 4.4% were

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 23 individuals (or about 9.20% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. 14 (or about 5.60% of the population) belonged to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 6 individuals (or about 2.40% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Gelterfingen about 57.6% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 10.8% have completed additional higher education (either

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

or a ''

Fachhochschule A ''Fachhochschule'' (; plural ''Fachhochschulen''), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts ...

''). Of the 15 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 66.7% were Swiss men, 26.7% were Swiss women. , there were a total of 25 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 23 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while 2 students came from another municipality. During the same year, 15 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Former municipalities of the canton of Bern