Teuffenthal is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Teuffenthal is first mentioned in 1344 as Toeffental.
The land around the modern village and what ever settlements were there belonged to the Herrschaft of Heimberg in the 13th century. The Heimberg's were under the authority of the Counts of Kyburg. On 11 November 1382, Rudolf II von Kyburg, attempted unsuccessfully to attack Solothurn. His attack started the Burgdorferkrieg (also Kyburgerkrieg) with the Old Swiss Confederacy. Bern used the war to expand north into the Aargau and south into the Oberland. After the Kyburg defeat, as part of the peace treaty, Bern bought the city of Thun and all its surrounding lands including Teuffenthal. Under Bernese rule, the small farming village was part of the distant parish of Hilterfingen until 1928 when it joined the parish of Buchen. In 1935 Teuffenthal became an independent parish.
In 1989 a school was founded in the municipality, however in 2008 it closed and the students traveled to the school in Buchen for their education.
Traditionally the rural, agrarian village raised crops and livestock on the valley floor, summered livestock in alpine meadows and cut timber. Agriculture still remains a major part of the local economy. In 2005 a total of 62% of all jobs in the municipality were in agriculture.
Geography
Teuffenthal has an area of . As of the 2004/06 survey, a total of or 46.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 50.3% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 3.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes. Between the 1981 and 2004/06 surveys the settled area increased from to , an increase of 55.56%.
From the same survey, housing and buildings made up 2.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.1%. A total of 48.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 2.0% is used for growing crops and 38.2% is pasturage and 6.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
It lies in the valley of the river Zulg on the north flank of Blueme mountain, some eastward of the district capital Thun. The municipality has no direct center, but consists of isolated hamlets and scattered farm settlements.
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.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or a Pall Gules.
Demographics
Teuffenthal has a population () of . , 2.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -6.4%. Migration accounted for -6.4%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.6%. Most of the population () speaks German (190 or 96.4%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (4 or 2.0%) and English is the third (2 or 1.0%).
, the population was 48.8% male and 51.2% female. The population was made up of 82 Swiss men (47.7% of the population) and 2 (1.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 86 Swiss women (50.0%) and 2 (1.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 85 or about 43.1% were born in Teuffenthal and lived there in 2000. There were 89 or 45.2% who were born in the same canton, while 13 or 6.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9 or 4.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23.0% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 56.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.5%.
, there were 84 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 99 married individuals, 8 widows or widowers and 6 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 25 households that consist of only one person and 8 households with five or more people. , a total of 67 apartments (85.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 4 apartments (5.1%) were seasonally occupied and 7 apartments (9.0%) were empty. In 2012, single family homes made up 30.0% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart: