Arni 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 Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

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

Arni is first mentioned in 1185 as ''Arne''. The village was probably acquired by

in 1399 and placed in the Signau ''

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 ...

''. The ''Herrschaft'' was abolished in 1529 and the village became a Bernese

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. In English, the original French combi ...

. Following the 1798 French invasion, Arni became part of the

Helvetic Republic The Helvetic Republic (; ; ) was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, ma ...

district of Höchstetten. When the Helvetic Republic collapsed in 1803, with the

Act of Mediation The Act of Mediation () was issued by Napoleon Bonaparte, French Consulate, First Consul of the French Republic on 19 February 1803 to abolish the Helvetic Republic, which had existed since the invasion of Old Swiss Confederacy, Switzerland by F ...

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 A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

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 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 ''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 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 ...

(960 or 97.0%) as their first language,

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

is the second most common (6 or 0.6%) and

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

is the third (5 or 0.5%). There are 3 people who speak

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 ...

. , 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 ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

of Hämlismatt is designated as 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 ...

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 A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

(6.1%). In the federal election, a total of 374 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 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 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 15 businesses in this sector. 91 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 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 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 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 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 ...

, while 825 or 83.3% 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 ...

. 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

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. There were 1 individual who belonged to another church. 45 (or about 4.55% 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 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 Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

, and 94 or (9.5%) 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 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 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. 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 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 ...

. 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