Dotzigen is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Dotzigen is first mentioned in 1182 as Tocingen.
The earliest trace of settlements in Dotzigen are six Hallstatt grave mounds on the Dotzigenberg. This was followed by a Roman era settlement near the current village center. During the Middle Ages it was part of the Herrschaft of Strassberg, which was acquired in 1393 by Bern. It was part of the low court of Diesbach in the bailiwick of Büren.
The village church of St. Mauritius was first mentioned in 1242. After the Protestant Reformation, in 1531, it came under Bernese control and the parish was immediately dissolved. At first the village was part of the parish of Büren and then later of Diessbach.
The village was along the Büren-Aarberg road and the inhabitants traded produce to those towns and operated a rest station. The Jura water correction projects of the 19th century helped prevent flooding and destruction in the village. In 1876 the Solothurn-Lyss railroad connected the village to those larger cities. Easy transportation links allowed commercial and industrial developments in Dotzigen. A distillery opened in 1888, followed by a brick factory in 1891 and a Parketterie furniture factory in 1898. Despite the presence of an agricultural cooperative and a metal foundry, in 2000 over two-thirds of the labor force commuted to towns such as Biel, Lyss and Grenchen. The historic Schlössli outside the village was built in 1898 by the brick manufacturer Johann Schaller.
Geography
Dotzigen has an area of . Of this area, or 55.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 26.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.2% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 7.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.8%. 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, 46.2% is used for growing crops and 7.3% is pastures, while 2.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
Dotzigen lies in Seeland at the western edge of the Dotzigen/Stedtli Mountains. In the west the Old Aare flows (the part of the Aare River that flows after the Jura water correction); it is now a protected floodplain. The Jura water correction made possible the expansion of the town in the flat area of the municipality.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Büren, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Seeland.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules in a Chief Argent a Mullet of the first.
Demographics
Dotzigen has a population () of . , 6.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of -2.1%. Migration accounted for -1.3%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.2%.
Most of the population () speaks German (1,304 or 93.7%) as their first language, French is the second most common (21 or 1.5%) and Italian is the third (13 or 0.9%). There are 3 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. The population was made up of 619 Swiss men (46.5% of the population) and 46 (3.5%) non-Swiss men. There were 630 Swiss women (47.3%) and 3 (0.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 401 or about 28.8% were born in Dotzigen and lived there in 2000. There were 595 or 42.8% who were born in the same canton, while 203 or 14.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 125 or 9.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 65% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 13.8%.
, there were 562 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 682 married individuals, 80 widows or widowers and 67 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 118 households that consist of only one person and 36 households with five or more people. , a total of 491 apartments (92.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 18 apartments (3.4%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (4.5%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.8 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.56%.
The historical population is given in the following chart: