Mörigen is a

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

in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

History

Mörigen is first mentioned in 1196 as ''Moringen''.

Prehistoric settlements

During the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

the lake shore near modern Mörigen was home to a large

Urnfield culture The Urnfield culture () was a late Bronze Age Europe, Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremation, cremating the dead and placin ...

stilt house Stilt houses (also called pile dwellings or lake dwellings) are houses raised on Stilts (architecture), stilts (or piles) over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding; they als ...

settlement, which probably reached its peak during the 9th century BC. The site was discovered in 1843 and after the

Jura water correction The correction of the waters of the Swiss Jura consisted of a wide series of hydrological undertakings carried out in Switzerland in the region of the three lakes: Lake Murten connected to Lake Neuchatel by the Broye Canal, the latter connec ...

dropped the water level in

Lake Biel __NOTOC__ Lake Biel or Lake Bienne (; ) is a lake in western Switzerland. Together with Lake Morat and Lake Neuchâtel, it is one of the three large lakes in the Jura region of Switzerland. It lies on the language boundary between German and F ...

the entire site was exposed. Initially artifacts were collected by amateurs and placed in private collections. The beginning of the collections of the Schwab Museum in

Biel Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German language, German: ''Biel'' ; French language, French: ''Bienne'' ; Bernese German, locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the ...

, the Laténium in Hauterive and the

Swiss National Museum The Swiss National Museum () is a museum in Zurich, Switzerland's largest city, adjacent to Central Station and the '' Platzspitz'' park. It is part of the ''Musée Suisse Group'', which is itself affiliated with the Federal Office of Culture ...

all came from Mörigen. In 1873 the

ese government banned private excavations at the site and commissioned Edward Jenner and Edmund Fellberg to lead an expedition to carefully excavate the site. They found the remains of a settlement which was elliptical in shape and about in size. The remains of some of the buildings and bridges were discovered. Willow wickerwork, straw, grain and plants provide an insight into how they lived and what they ate. Today there are about 1,400 bronze artifacts from Mörigen in Swiss museums along with a number in foreign countries. Refining vessels along with sandstone and clay molds provide evidence of bronze refining at Mörigen. The artifacts include 13 swords or fragments of weapons, tools, jewelry, horse bridles and crescent shaped razors based on a northern Italian style. In addition to bronze, some of the bracelets contain pieces of iron, one of the first traces of iron working in Switzerland. Ceramics and opaque glass beads have also been discovered at the site. In addition to the well researched Bronze Age settlement, at least three earlier settlements existed at Mörigen. The earliest were from the early to the late

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

(4th-3rd millennium BC) while the later were from the early Bronze Age. However, these sites were not well studied and have largely disappeared. During the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

there was a small settlement at Grens and possibly a villa at Eyacker. The area remained inhabited in the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

. A few graves from that era were found near the lake shore.

From foundation to modern Mörigen

During the Middle Ages, the Mörigen region was part of the ''

Herrschaft The German term ''Herrschaft'' (plural: ''Herrschaften'') covers a broad semantic field and only the context will tell whether it means, "rule", "power", "dominion", "authority", "territory" or "lordship". In its most abstract sense, it refers ...

'' of

Nidau Nidau is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Biel/Bienne (administrative district), Biel/Bienne administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. History Nidau is first mentio ...

. It was probably administered by the

ministerialis The ''ministeriales'' (singular: ''ministerialis'') were a legally unfree but socially elite class of knights, administrators, and officials in the High Middle Ages in the Holy Roman Empire, drawn from a mix of servile origins, free commoners, and ...

(unfree knights in the service of a

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

overlord) family of Mörigen. They probably had castles at Brüel and Ausserfeld to rule over the village and surrounding land. In 1398 the entire Inselgau region of the ''Herrschaft'' of Nidau, including Mörigen, was acquired by Bern. The ministerialis family was eventually replaced with knightly families from Bern and Nidau. A filial chapel was built in Ober-Mörigen and by 1497 the priest in

Täuffelen Täuffelen is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Täuffelen is first mentioned in 1228 as ''Choufalli''. In 1280 it was mentioned as ''Tofallie''. The lake shore was inhabited ...

was responsible for the chapel. When Mörigen adopted the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

in 1528, along with the rest of Bern, it became part of the Täuffelen

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. For much of its history, the major industries in Mörigen were raising grain, tending

vineyard A vineyard ( , ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines. Many vineyards exist for winemaking; others for the production of raisins, table grapes, and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is kno ...

s and fishing. In 1916 the Biel-Täuffelen-Ins railroad connected the village to the rest of the country. Its population began to grow in the 1960s with the completion of a road to Biel along the lake shore. Today Mörigen is a

commuter town A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

with about 80% of the population commuting to jobs in Bern and Biel.

Geography

Mörigen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 59.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 16.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 21.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 2.8% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 During the same year, housing and buildings made up 16.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 35.6% is used for growing crops and 13.4% is pastures, while 10.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. The municipality is located on the right bank of

. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Nidau, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Biel/Bienne.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
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 an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...

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 last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

is ''Azure two Stone Axes Argent handled and stripped Or.''

Demographics

Mörigen has a population () of . , 4.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 1%. Migration accounted for 1.5%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.5%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 13 August 2013 Most of the population () speaks

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(653 or 92.6%) as their first language, French is the second most common (43 or 6.1%) and Swedish is the third (4 or 0.6%). There is 1 person who speaks

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

and 1 person who speaks Romansh. , the population was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. The population was made up of 415 Swiss men (47.3% of the population) and 17 (1.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 419 Swiss women (47.8%) and 2 (0.2%) non-Swiss women.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 142 or about 20.1% were born in Mörigen and lived there in 2000. There were 326 or 46.2% who were born in the same canton, while 168 or 23.8% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 51 or 7.2% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 55.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 23.9%. , there were 228 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 406 married individuals, 42 widows or widowers and 29 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 83 households that consist of only one person and 22 households with five or more people. , a total of 283 apartments (85.0% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 44 apartments (13.2%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (1.8%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 In 2011, single family homes made up 75.0% 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:35 bottom:20 right:35 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:870 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:200 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:40 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:121 text:"121" bar:1850 from:start till:203 text:"203" bar:1860 from:start till:204 text:"204" bar:1870 from:start till:204 text:"204" bar:1880 from:start till:180 text:"180" bar:1888 from:start till:177 text:"177" bar:1900 from:start till:191 text:"191" bar:1910 from:start till:164 text:"164" bar:1920 from:start till:190 text:"190" bar:1930 from:start till:186 text:"186" bar:1941 from:start till:170 text:"170" bar:1950 from:start till:201 text:"201" bar:1960 from:start till:224 text:"224" bar:1970 from:start till:418 text:"418" bar:1980 from:start till:649 text:"649" bar:1990 from:start till:725 text:"725" bar:2000 from:start till:705 text:"705" bar:2010 from:start till:869 text:"869"

Transport

Mörigen owns over an Aare Seeland mobil trainstation.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 37.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the

FDP.The Liberals FDP.The Liberals (, , , ) is a liberal political party in Switzerland. The party was formed on 1 January 2009, after two parties, the Free Democratic Party (FDP/PRD) and the smaller Liberal Party (LPS/PLS), united. In Vaud and Valais, the parti ...

(18.5%), the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (17.9%) and the Social Democratic Party (SP) (9.5%). In the federal election, a total of 432 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 is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

was 63.2%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

, Mörigen had an unemployment rate of 1.17%. , there were a total of 119 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 27 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 9 businesses involved in this sector. 28 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 constructi ...

and there were 9 businesses in this sector. 64 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 ...

, with 15 businesses in this sector. There were 367 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.4% of the workforce. there were a total of 87

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

jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 17, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 25 of which 17 or (68.0%) were in manufacturing and 8 (32.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 45. In the tertiary sector; 9 or 20.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 21 or 46.7% were in a hotel or restaurant, 6 or 13.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 6 or 13.3% were in education. , there were 42 workers who commuted into the municipality and 297 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 7.1 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 70 workers (62.5% of the 112 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Mörigen.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 14.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 67.3% used a private car. In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Mörigen making 150,000 CHF was 11.6%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 17%. For comparison, the rate for the entire canton in the same year, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide rate was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively. In 2009 there were a total of 399 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 201 made over 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Mörigen was 165,527 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 0.1% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.

Religion

From the , 502 or 71.2% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...

, while 109 or 15.5% were

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 6 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.85% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there was 1 individual who belongs to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. 63 (or about 8.94% of the population) belonged to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

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 22 individuals (or about 3.12% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Mörigen about 58.8% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 31.7% have completed additional higher education (either

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

or a ''

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

''). Of the 165 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 73.3% were Swiss men, 20.6% were Swiss women, 3.6% were non-Swiss men. The Canton of

school system A state school, public school, or government school is a primary or secondary school that educates all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in part by taxation and operated by the government of the state. State-funded schools ar ...

provides one year of non-obligatory

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

, followed by six years of

Primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower

Secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

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 Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...

. The

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

of the first to sixth grade is run together with that of

Sutz-Lattrigen Sutz-Lattrigen is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Biel/Bienne (administrative district), Biel/Bienne administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. It is home to a number ...

. One

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

class is taught in both

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place (geography), place, set of Norm (social), norms, culture, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Ide ...

. Depending on the

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

level, the

child A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

ren attend

either in Mörigen or in

. From the 7th to the 9th grade, the

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

s attend school at the Oberstufenzentrum Täuffelen. Th
high school
is located in Biel-Bienne.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morigen Municipalities of the canton of Bern Populated places on Lake Biel