Wimmis is a
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
Frutigen-Niedersimmental 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 ...
in
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 ...
.
History
![Ludwig aberli wimmis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Ludwig_aberli_wimmis.jpg)
Wimmis is first mentioned in 994 as ''Windemis''.
[
The oldest traces of a settlement in Wimmis include the ]Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...
and Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
settlements on the Chienberg and the Bronze Age and High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...
settlements on the Pintel. Roman era
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
artifacts were found at Engfeld and bronze statue of Emperor Gordian III
Gordian III ( la, Marcus Antonius Gordianus; 20 January 225 – February 244) was Roman emperor from 238 to 244. At the age of 13, he became the youngest sole emperor up to that point (until Valentinian II in 375). Gordian was the son of Anton ...
was found at Tägerstein. The area remained inhabited during the Middle Ages and in 994 King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
Otto III
Otto III (June/July 980 – 23 January 1002) was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu.
Otto III was crowned as King of ...
granted his estates in Wimmis to Selz Abbey
Selz Abbey or Seltz Abbey (german: Kloster Selz; french: Abbaye de Seltz) is a former monastery and Imperial abbey in Seltz, formerly Selz, in Alsace, France.
History
The Benedictine monastery, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, was founded in ab ...
.[
By the 12th or 13th century the Lords of Wimmis or Strättligen built Wimmis Castle above the village. The exact relationship between the two families is unclear, but the Wimmis line became extinct in the mid-13th century and by 1260 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 Strättligen owned Wimmis Castle and the surrounding lands. A few years later the castle and lands were incorporated into the extensive holdings of the Freiherr von Weissenburg. Over the following years, the town at the foot of the castle was attacked and burned twice by 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 ...
ese troops, in 1298 and 1334 and the castle was attacked and taken in 1334. After the war, Freiherr Johann the Elder von Weissenburg was forced to sign a treaty with Bern.[Burgenwelt.de]
accessed 11 December 2013 The castle and surrounding bailiwick
A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. The bailiwick is probably modelled on th ...
were inherited by the Freiherr von Brandis in 1368. However, in 1398 he sold a half share of the estates to the von Scharnachtal family and in 1437 sold the remaining half to them. The von Scharnachtals held the castle and bailiwick until Bern bought it back in 1449.[
The castle church of St. Martin was first mentioned in 1228 as one of the twelve churches surrounding ]Lake Thun
Lake Thun (german: Thunersee) is an Alpine lake in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland named after the city of Thun, on its northern shore. At in surface area, it is the largest Swiss lake entirely within a single canton.
The lake was created af ...
in the Strättliger Chronicle. The castle church was built in the 10th century on the site of an earlier 7th or 8th century church. It was expanded in the 14th century and again in the 15th. The mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
s are from the 15th century expansion. In 1527 it, along with the entire Niedersimmental converted to 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 ...
.[
Under Bernese rule the castle became the center of the Niedersimmental district. During the 17th and 18th centuries the castle was expanded in several stages into its current appearance. In 1708 a fire broke out in the castle town, destroying the entire settlement around the castle. The castle town was abandoned and the current castle gardens were planted on the site. After the 1803 ]Act of Mediation
The Act of Mediation () was issued by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic on 19 February 1803 establishing the Swiss Confederation. The act also abolished the previous Helvetic Republic, which had existed since the invasion ...
, the castle became the center of new Niedersimmental district. In 1967 the district administration moved into a modern office building but the district court remained in the castle. In 2010 the administrative structure of the Canton of Bern changed. The court moved from Wimmis to Thun
, neighboring_municipalities= Amsoldingen, Heiligenschwendi, Heimberg, Hilterfingen, Homberg, Schwendibach, Spiez, Steffisburg, Thierachern, Uetendorf, Zwieselberg
, twintown =
, website = www.thun.ch
Thun (french: Thoune) ...
and the castle was given to the municipality.[
Wimmis' location at the entrance to the Simmental made it into an important local trading center. In 1815 the construction of the Simmental road allowed more traffic to travel through Wimmis. A village school opened in 1859. In the 1870s it was envisioned as a railroad hub, before the hub was moved to ]Spiez
Spiez is a town and municipality on the shore of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss canton of Bern. It is part of the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district. Besides the town of Spiez, the municipality also includes ...
. Between 1897 and 1902 the Spiez-Zweisimmen railway passed through the village and built stations at Wimmis and Eifeld. The railroad helped factories move into Wimmis. In 1919 the Swiss military established the Federal Gunpowder factory at Wimmis. In the 1990s it became Nitrochemie Wimmis, which in addition to producing smokeless powder, explosives and industrial chemicals is the world's largest paper deacidification
Mass deacidification is a term used in library and information science as one possible measure against the degradation of paper in old books, the so-called " slow fires". The goal of the process is to increase the pH of acidic paper. Although aci ...
facility.[
During the ]Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the Swiss military
The Swiss Armed Forces (german: Schweizer Armee, french: Armée suisse, it, Esercito svizzero, rm, Armada svizra; ) operates on land and in the air, serving as the primary armed forces of Switzerland. Under the country's militia system, sol ...
maintained a store of uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
in Wimmis, which was a part of its nuclear weapons programme.
Geography
Wimmis is located between the Simmenfluh and Burgfluh rivers at the entrance to the Simmental
The Simmental ( en, Simme Valley) is an Swiss Alps, alpine valley in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. It expands from Lenk to Boltigen, in a more or less south-north direction (Obersimmental (district), Obersimmental), and from there to the v ...
. The municipal borders stretch up the flank of the Niesen
The Niesen is a mountain peak of the Bernese Alps in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. The summit of the mountain is in elevation.
It overlooks Lake Thun, in the Bernese Oberland region, and forms the northern end of a ridge that stretches north ...
mountain to its peak at . It consists of the village of Wimmis and the settlements of Oberdorf, Brodhüsi, Hasli and Burgholz.
The municipality has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 28.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 47.0% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 7.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 14.8% is unproductive land.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics]
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
During the same year, industrial buildings made up 1.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 2.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.0%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.1% of the area A total of 43.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 5.4% is used for growing crops and 14.9% is pasturage and 8.1% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 8.2% is unproductive vegetation and 6.7% is too rocky for vegetation.[
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Niedersimmental, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Frutigen-Niedersimmental.]
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 ''Gules a Castle embatteled Argent.''
Demographics
Wimmis has a population () of . , 8.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 3%. Migration accounted for 2.1%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 9 December 2013
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
**Ge ...
(2,223 or 96.1%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
is the second most common (27 or 1.2%) and French is the third (15 or 0.6%). There are 15 people who speak 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 ...
and 3 people who speak Romansh.[
, the population was 51.4% male and 48.6% female. The population was made up of 1,116 Swiss men (46.7% of the population) and 112 (4.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,074 Swiss women (44.9%) and 89 (3.7%) non-Swiss women.][Statistical office of the Canton of Bern]
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 714 or about 30.9% were born in Wimmis and lived there in 2000. There were 1,067 or 46.1% who were born in the same canton, while 288 or 12.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 171 or 7.4% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17.7%.][
, there were 943 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,134 married individuals, 137 widows or widowers and 100 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 322 households that consist of only one person and 67 households with five or more people. , a total of 916 apartments (88.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 82 apartments (8.0%) were seasonally occupied and 33 apartments (3.2%) were 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 7.1 new units per 1000 residents.[ The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.58%. In 2011, single family homes made up 51.3% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Colors=
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id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8)
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color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center
bar:1764 from:start till:573 text:"573"
bar:1850 from:start till:1353 text:"1,353"
bar:1860 from:start till:1278 text:"1,278"
bar:1870 from:start till:1328 text:"1,328"
bar:1880 from:start till:1347 text:"1,347"
bar:1888 from:start till:1242 text:"1,242"
bar:1900 from:start till:1423 text:"1,423"
bar:1910 from:start till:1310 text:"1,310"
bar:1920 from:start till:1471 text:"1,471"
bar:1930 from:start till:1429 text:"1,429"
bar:1941 from:start till:1681 text:"1,681"
bar:1950 from:start till:1736 text:"1,736"
bar:1960 from:start till:1756 text:"1,756"
bar:1970 from:start till:1833 text:"1,833"
bar:1980 from:start till:1969 text:"1,969"
bar:1990 from:start till:2096 text:"2,096"
bar:2000 from:start till:2314 text:"2,314"
bar:2010 from:start till:2366 text:"2,366"
Heritage sites of national significance
The village church of Wimmis, the Letzi Spissi fortifications, and Wimmis Castle
Wimmis Castle is a castle in the municipality of Wimmis of the Canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
History
By the 12th or 13th century the Lords of Wimmis or Strättligen built Wimmis Castle abov ...
are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire village of Wimmis is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites
The Federal Inventory of Heritage Sites (ISOS) is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage.
Sites of national importance
Types
The types are based on t ...
.
The village church of St. Martin was built on the site of an early medieval church. Under the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy
The Kingdom of Upper Burgundy was a Frankish dominion established in 888 by the Welf king Rudolph I of Burgundy on the territory of former Middle Francia. It grew out of the Carolingian margraviate of Transjurane Burgundy (''Transjurania'', ...
a fortified estate was built near the church and became a local administrative center.[Burgenwelt.de website-Schloss Wimmis](_blank)
accessed 11 December 2013 Around the 9th century the early church was replaced with a new building that had a wider aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...
. In 994 King Otto III granted his estate and church in Wimmis to Selz Abbey. In the 1228 Strättliger Chronicle it was listed as one of the 12 Lake Thun churches. In the 13th century a fire destroyed the roof, though it was quickly replaced. It was converted into an aisleless church
An aisleless church (german: Saalkirche) is a single-nave church building that consists of a single hall-like room. While similar to the hall church, the aisleless church lacks aisles or passageways on either side of the nave and separated fr ...
in 1450 and the wall murals are from the 15th century. The north-west corner houses a painting of the procession to Calvary
Calvary ( la, Calvariae or ) or Golgotha ( grc-gre, Γολγοθᾶ, ''Golgothâ'') was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was said to have been crucified according to the canonical Gospels. Since at least the early mediev ...
and fragments of the Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...
and descent from the Cross
The Descent from the Cross ( el, Ἀποκαθήλωσις, ''Apokathelosis''), or Deposition of Christ, is the scene, as depicted in art, from the Gospels' accounts of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking Christ down from the cross after hi ...
. The church converted to the Reformed faith in 1527. The pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...
was built in 1672 and the baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism.
Aspersion and affusion fonts
The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion (sprinkling) or affusion (pouring). ...
was carved in 1552.
The Letzi Spissi fortifications were built by Freiherr von Weissenburg about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) south-west of the castle. It was built to help defend the entrance to the Niedersimmental.
The castle was built around the 12th or 13th century on or near the site of an earlier fortified estate. It was owned by the Freiherr von Strättligen and then the Freiherr von Weissenburg. In 1334 the town and castle were attacked and taken by Bernese troops. In 1449 Bern bought it from its current owner, the von Scharnachtal family. Under Bernese rule the castle became the center of the Niedersimmental district. During the 17th and 18th centuries the castle was expanded in several stages into its current appearance. After the 1803 Act of Mediation, the castle became the center of new Niedersimmental district. In 1967 the district administration moved into a modern office building but the district court remained in the castle. In 2010 the administrative structure of the Canton of Bern changed. The court moved from Wimmis to Thun and the castle was given to the municipality.
File:Wimmis Eglise Suisse canton Berne.jpg , The village church
File:Wimmis Schloss Kirche-7.jpg, Interior of the village church, looking toward the choir
File:Wimmis Schloss Kirche-6.jpg, Interior of the village church, looking toward the back
File:Panzersperre in Wimmis 02.JPG, Site of the Letzi Spissi fortifications at Wimmis
File:SchlossWimmis.jpg , Wimmis Castle
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 42.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (16.8%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (12.3%) and the Evangelical People's Party (EVP) (5.2%). In the federal election, a total of 920 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 50.2%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election]
accessed 8 May 2012
Economy
, Wimmis had an unemployment rate of 1.88%. , there were a total of 1,081 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 90 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 29 businesses involved in this sector. 683 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 40 businesses in this sector. 308 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 69 businesses in this sector.[ There were 1,133 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 39.0% of the workforce.
there were a total of 948 ]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 59, of which 55 were in agriculture and 4 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 639 of which 345 or (54.0%) were in manufacturing, 77 or (12.1%) were in mining and 160 (25.0%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 250. In the tertiary sector; 86 or 34.4% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 13 or 5.2% were in the movement and storage of goods, 23 or 9.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 7 or 2.8% were the insurance or financial industry, 20 or 8.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 34 or 13.6% were in education and 26 or 10.4% were in health care.
, there were 708 workers who commuted into the municipality and 724 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 409 workers (36.6% of the 1,117 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Wimmis.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 15.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 55.6% used a private car.[
In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Wimmis making 150,000 CHF was 12.6%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 18.5%. 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 989 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 272 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 9 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The greatest number of workers, 304, made between 50,000 and 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Wimmis was 102,451 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF.
In 2011 a total of 5.5% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.
]
Religion
From the , 1,771 or 76.5% 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 211 or 9.1% 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 15 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.65% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 79 individuals (or about 3.41% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 44 (or about 1.90% of the population) who were Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
. There were 2 individuals who belonged to another church. 110 (or about 4.75% 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 ...
or 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 81 individuals (or about 3.50% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Transport
Wimmis sits on the Spiez–Zweisimmen line and is served by trains at the Wimmis
Wimmis is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Wimmis is first mentioned in 994 as ''Windemis''.
The oldest traces of a settlement in Wimmis include the Mesol ...
and Eifeld railway stations.
Climate
Between 1981 and 2010 Wimmis had an average of 138.8 days of rain or snow per year and on average received of precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
. The wettest month was July during which time Wimmis received an average of of rain or snow. During this month there was precipitation for an average of 12.9 days. The month with the most days of precipitation was June, with an average of 14.2, but with only of rain or snow. The driest month of the year was February with an average of of precipitation over 9.8 days.[, the Wimmis weather station elevation is 669 meters above sea level.]
Education
In Wimmis about 59.8% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 14.1% 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 199 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 74.9% were Swiss men, 20.1% were Swiss women, 4.0% were non-Swiss men.][
The Canton of Bern school system 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 cent ...
, 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
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...
.
During the 2011-12 school year, there were a total of 309 students attending classes in Wimmis. There were 2 kindergarten classes with a total of 39 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 10.3% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 7.7% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 7 primary classes and 145 students. Of the primary students, 11.7% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 10.3% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 7 lower secondary classes with a total of 125 students. There were 5.6% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 5.6% have a different mother language than the classroom language.[Schuljahr 2011/12 pdf document]
accessed 9 May 2013
, there were a total of 231 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 138 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while 93 students came from another municipality. During the same year, 216 residents attended schools outside the municipality.[
Wimmis is home to the ''Dorfbibliothek Wimmis'' library. The library has () 6,490 books or other media, and loaned out 16,904 items in the same year. It was open a total of 156 days with average of 8 hours per week during that year.]
accessed 14 May 2010
References
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{{Authority control
Municipalities of the canton of Bern
Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Bern