Jens 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
Seeland 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 ...
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
Jens is first mentioned in 1229-30 as ''Gens''. In 1335 it was mentioned as ''Jensse''.
[
The village was originally part of the '' Herrschaft'' of Nidau. In 1335, the owner of the ''Herrschaft'', the Knight Ulrich von Sutz, sold his land to the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau. The Counts held the land until 1398 when it was acquired by the city 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 ...
. Under Bernese rule Jens became part of the Bailiwick of Nidau. Jens and Worben formed a court in the Bailiwick and 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 Bürglen. During the Jura water correction projects of 1868-91, a canal was built in Jens and the nearby marsh was drained. The majority of the new farmland was planted with sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...
s for the sugar beet factory in Aarberg. As the population grew, the housing developments of Tannacker and Weieried were built in the late 1970s. Today about two-thirds of the workers commute to jobs outside the municipality.[
]
Geography
Jens has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 69.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 22.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% 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 4.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.6%. Out of the forested land, 20.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 58.3% is used for growing crops and 10.0% is pastures, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.[
The municipality is located on the southern slope of the Jensberg.
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 Seeland.]
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 Rose Argent barbed and seeded proper and a Bar of the second.''
Demographics
Jens has a population () of . , 3.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of -1.2%. Migration accounted for -0.6%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.3%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 9 August 2013
Most of the population () speaks German (585 or 96.1%) as their first language, French is the second most common (13 or 2.1%) and English is the third (4 or 0.7%). There is 1 person who speaks Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh.[
, the population was 50.2% male and 49.8% female. The population was made up of 329 Swiss men (48.7% of the population) and 10 (1.5%) non-Swiss men. There were 326 Swiss women (48.3%) and 1 (0.1%) non-Swiss women.][Statistical office of the Canton of Bern]
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 199 or about 32.7% were born in Jens and lived there in 2000. There were 261 or 42.9% who were born in the same canton, while 105 or 17.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 26 or 4.3% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.9% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17.5%.][
, there were 229 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 337 married individuals, 29 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 52 households that consist of only one person and 22 households with five or more people. , a total of 226 apartments (91.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 15 apartments (6.1%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (2.4%) 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 3 new units per 1000 residents.[ The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.06%. In 2011, single family homes made up 68.6% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:]
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 30.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (20.6%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (19.6%) and the Green Party (6.4%). In the federal election, a total of 307 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 58.3%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election]
accessed 8 May 2012
Economy
, Jens had an unemployment rate of 0.82%. , there were a total of 97 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 43 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 15 businesses involved in this sector. 24 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 5 businesses in this sector. 30 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 12 businesses in this sector.[ There were 329 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.8% of the workforce.
there were a total of 71 ]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 25, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 23 of which 12 or (52.2%) were in manufacturing and 10 (43.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 23. In the tertiary sector; 7 or 30.4% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 3 or 13.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 8.7% were the insurance or financial industry, 1 was a technical professional or scientist, 4 or 17.4% were in education.
, there were 24 workers who commuted into the municipality and 245 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 10.2 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 84 workers (77.8% of the 108 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Jens.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 11.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 59.9% used a private car.[
In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Jens making 150,000 CHF was 12.9%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 19%. 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 285 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 126 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 5 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Jens was 120,112 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF.
In 2011 a total of 0.9% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.
]
Religion
From the , 457 or 75.0% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 55 or 9.0% 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 4 individuals (or about 0.66% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 16 individuals (or about 2.63% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 5 (or about 0.82% 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 4 individuals who were Buddhist and 1 person who was Hindu
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
. 51 (or about 8.37% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 16 individuals (or about 2.63% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Jens about 57.7% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 25.1% 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'').[ Of the 101 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 81.2% were Swiss men, 18.8% were Swiss women.][
The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten, 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.][Schuljahr 2011/12 pdf document]
accessed 9 May 2013
, there were a total of 48 students living in and attending any school in the municipality. 45 students from Jens attended schools outside the municipality.[
]
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Municipalities of the canton of Bern