Amsoldingen is a municipality in the Thun administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Amsoldingen is first mentioned in 1175 as Ansoltingen.
The oldest trace of a settlement in the area are the remains of a possibly neolithic settlement near Schmittmoos. During the Bronze Age there was a village on the Bürgli. The Swiss heritage site, St. Mauritius collegiate, was first built about 700. The early church was replaced with a pre-Romanesque church built in the 10th and 11th centuries from stone scavenged from the Roman ruins at Aventicum. A number of out buildings, a castle and a village grew up around the church. The college of canons at the church ruled over the village during the Middle Ages, but gradually lost power as Bern expanded into the region. Over the following centuries, the college of canons gradually became impoverished and in 1484 the Pope approved the dissolution of the college and its incorporation into the newly created college of canons of St. Vincent's cathedral in Bern.
Following the 1798 French invasion, Amsoldingen became part of the Helvetic Republic district of Oberseftigen. Following the collapse of the Republic and 1803 Act of Mediation it was assigned to the Thun District. The original Thun district was dissolved in 2010 and Amsoldingen joined the new, larger Verwaltungskreis Thun.
The municipality has become a commuter town of Thun, with most residents commuting to jobs outside Amsoldingen. Several new residential areas, including Riedli and Galgacher, were built in 1985 to house the slowly growing population. In 1990 about 28% of the local jobs were in agriculture and 26% were in manufacturing, with the remainder in the services industry.
Geography
Amsoldingen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 60.3% was used for agricultural purposes, while or 21.9% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 7.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 8.5% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.5% is unproductive land.
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 5.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.1%. A total of 20.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 28.7% is used for growing crops and 27.6% is pasturage, while 4.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in lakes.
The village is located approximately 5 kilometers from the city of Thun. The municipality includes the village of Amsoldingen on the Amsoldingersee and scattered farm houses and hamlets. The parish, however, also includes the municipalities of Höfen, Längenbühl and Zwieselberg.
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.
Two lakes, Amsoldingersee and Uebeschisee, are located adjacent to the municipality.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure a Buckle Or.
Demographics
Amsoldingen has a population () of . , 1.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -2.1%. Migration accounted for -2.4%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.5%.
Most of the population () speaks German (741 or 96.6%) as their first language, both French and Albanian have 5 native speakers. There are 2 people who speak Italian.
, the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The population was made up of 395 Swiss men (49.1% of the population) and 10 (1.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 395 Swiss women (49.1%) and 5 (0.6%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 271 or about 35.3% were born in Amsoldingen and lived there in 2000. There were 366 or 47.7% who were born in the same canton, while 77 or 10.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 39 or 5.1% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 58.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.4%.
, there were 305 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 389 married individuals, 54 widows or widowers and 19 individuals who are divorced.