Grafenried is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Grafenried, Büren zum Hof, Etzelkofen, Limpach, Mülchi, Schalunen and Zauggenried merged into the municipality of Fraubrunnen.
History
Grafenried is first mentioned in 1258 as Gravenriet. In 1262 it was mentioned as Riede.
The oldest trace of a settlement is a Hallstatt era grave mound at Eichberg. The remains of what may have been a Roman era farm as well as a late medieval abandoned village were discovered at Wille/Wittenberg. During the Middle Ages the village, court and church were owned by the Counts of Thierstein. In the 13th century Fraubrunnen Abbey acquired the entire village. It remained under the abbey's control until Bern adopted the Protestant Reformation, secularized the abbey and took all the abbey's lands in 1528. Under Bernese control, Grafenried became part of the bailiwick of Fraubrunnen, which was part of the court of Zollikofen.
The first church in the village was built in the 7th or 8th century. The aisleless church was built above a post-Roman tomb outside the village on the road to Fraubrunnen. The village bought the patronage rights to the church from the abbey in 1258. In 1535 it became the parish church for the municipality. The current church was built in 1748.
During the 19th century many of the local farmers switched from growing grain to raising dairy cattle. The village dairy opened in 1848. In 1916 a station on the Bern-Solothurn-Zollikofen Railway (now Regional Bern-Solothurn) was built in the village. However, it remained mostly agricultural and rural with only a few small businesses. A few industrial businesses (auto recycling, steel engineering and a wood products factory) moved into the village in the 1970s. The new neighborhoods Bachtelen and Sinfonia were built in 1976 to provide housing for the growing population.
Geography
Before the merger, Grafenried had a total area of . Of this area, or 55.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 35.0% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 10.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.4%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.1%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 43.9% is used for growing crops and 9.3% is pastures, while 2.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
It is located on the eastern Rapperswil plateau. It includes the village of Grafenried as well as the two hamlets that were founded in the 16th century, Buchhof and Binel.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Fraubrunnen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent on a Base Vert a Hind statant Gules.
Demographics
Grafenried had a population (as of 2011) of 980. , 3.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 6.8%. Migration accounted for 5.3%, while births and deaths accounted for 2.4%.
Most of the population () speaks German (862 or 95.9%) as their first language, French is the second most common (15 or 1.7%) and Italian is the third (3 or 0.3%).
, the population was 48.2% male and 51.8% female. The population was made up of 448 Swiss men (45.8% of the population) and 23 (2.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 493 Swiss women (50.4%) and 14 (1.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 278 or about 30.9% were born in Grafenried and lived there in 2000. There were 395 or 43.9% who were born in the same canton, while 155 or 17.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 54 or 6.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 14.7%.
, there were 378 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 454 married individuals, 36 widows or widowers and 31 individuals who are divorced.