Homberg () 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 administrative district of
Thun
Thun () is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Bern, Bern in Switzerland. ...
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 ...
in
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
Originally the small farming villages that make up Homberg were 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
Heimberg under the
House of Kyburg
The Kyburg family (; ; also Kiburg) was a noble family of ''grafen'' (counts) in the Duchy of Swabia, a cadet line of the counts of Dillingen, who in the late 12th and early 13th centuries ruled the County of Kyburg, corresponding to much of wh ...
. After a failed raid on
Solothurn
Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains.
The town is ...
on 11 November 1382 and the resulting
Burgdorferkrieg, the Kyburgs lost most of their lands, including Homberg, to
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 ...
in 1384. Under Bernese rule it was part of the
Steffisburg
Steffisburg is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2020 the former municipality of Schwendibach merged into the municipality of Steffisburg.
History
Steffisburg is first m ...
court under the
Thun District
Thun District is one of the 26 administrative districts in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. Its capital is the municipality of Thun.
On 1 January 2010, the district's administrative functions were transferred to the newly established and enlarge ...
. Religiously it was part of the
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 ...
of Steffisburg until 1936 when it joined the
Buchen parish.
[
Traditionally the farmers of the villages practiced seasonal alpine herding with limited farming on the high valley floor. During the 18th and 19th centuries there was a small pottery industry in the municipality. In the late 20th and into the 21st centuries many of the residents commuted to jobs in Thun, while many of the remainder worked in tourism.][
The municipality has both a primary and secondary school which are located in three school houses.][
]
Geography
Homberg has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 63.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.0% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 4.3% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 0.2% 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 2.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.2%. A total of 30.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 15.5% is used for growing crops and 46.0% is pasturage, while 1.7% is used for orchards or vine crops.[
The municipality is located on the left side of the Zulg valley. It includes 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 Dreiligass, Enzenbühl, Huckhaus and Fuhren along with scattered farm houses.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Thun, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Thun.[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 ''Gules a Tower roofed Argent issuant from a Mount of six Coupeaux Vert between two Mullets Or.''
Demographics
Homberg has a population () of . , 1.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of 1.8%. Migration accounted for 1.4%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 27 August 2014
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 ...
(472 or 97.3%) as their first language, Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
is the second most common (5 or 1.0%) and 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 third (3 or 0.6%). There is 1 person who speaks French, 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 2 people who speak Romansh.[
, the population was 48.2% male and 51.8% female. The population was made up of 240 Swiss men (48.0% of the population) and 1 (0.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 255 Swiss women (51.0%) and 4 (0.8%) non-Swiss women.][Statistical office of the Canton of Bern]
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 245 or about 50.5% were born in Homberg and lived there in 2000. There were 189 or 39.0% who were born in the same canton, while 29 or 6.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 21 or 4.3% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 28.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 55.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.1%.][
, there were 198 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 253 married individuals, 27 widows or widowers and 7 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 58 households that consist of only one person and 25 households with five or more people. , a total of 171 apartments (91.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 5 apartments (2.7%) were seasonally occupied and 10 apartments (5.4%) 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 2.0 new units per 1000 residents.[ The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.5%. In 2012, single family homes made up 32.6% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Economy
, Homberg had an unemployment rate of 0.73%. , there were a total of 174 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 87 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 35 businesses involved in this sector. 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 ...
employs 26 people and there were 9 businesses in this sector. 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 ...
employs 60 people, with 15 businesses in this sector.[ There were 245 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.4% of the workforce.
there were a total of 97 ]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 55, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 17 of which 12 or (70.6%) were in manufacturing and 5 (29.4%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 25. In the tertiary sector; 3 or 12.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 1 was in the information industry, 1 was a technical professional or scientist, 8 or 32.0% were in education and 8 or 32.0% were in health care.
, there were 22 workers who commuted into the municipality and 140 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 6.4 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 105 workers (82.7% of the 127 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Homberg.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 6.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 49% used a private car.[
The local and cantonal tax rate in Homberg is one of the lowest in the canton. In 2012 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Homberg making 150,000 CHF was 12.6%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 18.9%. For comparison, the average rate for the entire canton in 2011, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide average was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively.
In 2010 there were a total of 194 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 51 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 3 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Homberg was 110,976 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 131,244 CHF.
In 2011 a total of 1.2% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.
]
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 56.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) (12.3%), the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (11.4%) and the Evangelical People's Party (EVP) (4.9%). In the federal election, a total of 227 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 59.6%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election]
accessed 8 May 2012
Religion
From the , 380 or 78.4% 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 14 or 2.9% 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 5 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.03% of the population), and there were 57 individuals (or about 11.75% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 5 (or about 1.03% of the population) who were Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
. There was 1 person who was Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
and 1 individual who belonged to another church. 21 (or about 4.33% 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 ...
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 1 individuals (or about 0.21% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Homberg about 56.7% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 13.4% 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 34 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 76.5% were Swiss men, 14.7% 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 ...
.[Datei der Gemeinde- und Schultabellen]
accessed 23 July 2014
, there were a total of 64 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 63 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while one student came from another municipality. During the same year, 8 residents attended schools outside the municipality.[
]
Notable residents
Swiss-Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
n sports pedagogue Louis-Emil Eyer was born in Homberg.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Municipalities of the canton of Bern