Kernenried is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Kernenried was first mentioned around 1261-63 as Reide, in 1318 it was mentioned as Kerrenriet.
The earliest trace of a settlement in the area is a Hallstatt grave mound near Oberholz-Schulwald. A horde of Roman era coins was discovered near the border with Zauggenried. During the Middle Ages the Herrschaft of Kernenried was owned by the Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Kerro, who were in the service of the Counts of Kyburg. The Kerro family ruled Kernenried from their water castle in Mösli. However, the castle was destroyed by Bern in 1318 and the Kerro lands were acquired by Bern. In the following years, the Bernese patrician von Erlach family received the village as part of a dowry. In 1579 the village was given to the obere Spital in Bern to help support this hospital. After the Act of Mediation in 1803, the village was assigned to Burgdorf district.
The village chapel was supported by the Kirchberg parish. After the Protestant Reformation the chapel was abandoned and eventually demolished. The village remains part of the Kirchberg parish.
Even though the proximity of a highway has encouraged some commuters to move into the village, it has retained its agricultural and small business character. Together with the nearby municipality of Zauggenried, they form a school district.
Geography
Kernenried has an area of . Of this area, or 60.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 23.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.5% of the area Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 51.4% is used for growing crops and 7.5% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located on the Urtenen river.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Burgdorf, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Emmental.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Bend and a Mullet Argent.
Demographics
Kernenried has a population () of . , 6.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of -1.6%. Migration accounted for -1.8%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.6%.
Most of the population () speaks German (436 or 98.0%) as their first language, Macedonian is the second most common (4 or 0.9%) and French is the third (1 or 0.2%).
, the population was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. The population was made up of 200 Swiss men (45.1% of the population) and 17 (3.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 213 Swiss women (48.1%) and 13 (2.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 142 or about 31.9% were born in Kernenried and lived there in 2000. There were 227 or 51.0% who were born in the same canton, while 51 or 11.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 16 or 3.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 61.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17.8%.
, there were 165 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 247 married individuals, 17 widows or widowers and 16 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 28 households that consist of only one person and 16 households with five or more people. , a total of 163 apartments (93.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 9 apartments (5.1%) were seasonally occupied and 3 apartments (1.7%) were empty.
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 33.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (26.6%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (14.7%) and the Green Liberal Party (GLP) (6.9%). In the federal election, a total of 152 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 44.7%.