Bettenhausen is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2011, the former municipality of Bollodingen was merged with Bettenhausen.
History
Bettenhausen is first mentioned in 1335 as Bettenhusen.
A few scattered neolithic artifacts have been found in the municipality, from prehistoric settlements in the Aare valley. During the Middle Ages the village was part of the lands of the Freiherr of Aarburg. In 1429 he sold the village to the town of Burgdorf. In 1509 Burgdord bought the Ernizhaldenwald (Ernizhalden Forest) which was incorporated into the municipality and today is called the Bettenhausenwald.
Until 1833 Bettenhausen and Thörigen shared a school house. After that date they split into two independent school districts. In 1967 Bollodingen joined the Betternhausen school and in 2011 Bollodingen was absorbed into the political municipality. Secondary students travel to Herzogenbuchsee for school.
Today the vast majority of residents commute to jobs outside the municipality. About one third of the jobs inside its borders are in agriculture.
Geography
Bettenhausen has an area of . As of the 2005/06 survey, a total of or 66.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 23.1% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 9.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes.
From the same survey, housing and buildings made up 6.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.3%. All of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 50.8% is used for growing crops and 15.7% is pasturage. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality consists of the village of Bettenhausen and scattered farms surrounding the village. It is part of the Herzogenbuchsee parish.
On 1 January 2011 the former municipality of Bollodingen merged into the municipality of Bettenhausen.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Wangen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Oberaargau.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure a Ploughshare Argent in bend between a Mullet Or and a Moon Crescent of the same in bend.
Demographics
Bettenhausen has a population () of . , 3.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of 0.0%. Migration accounted for -1.9%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.0%.
Most of the population () speaks German (466 or 98.1%) as their first language, French is the second most common (4 or 0.8%) and Turkish is the third (2 or 0.4%).
, the population was 48.7% male and 51.3% female. The population was made up of 318 Swiss men (46.8% of the population) and 13 (1.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 336 Swiss women (49.5%) and 12 (1.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 155 or about 32.6% were born in Bettenhausen and lived there in 2000. There were 203 or 42.7% who were born in the same canton, while 84 or 17.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 22 or 4.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 17.0% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 63.6% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.4%.
, there were 190 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 248 married individuals, 23 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 50 households that consist of only one person and 8 households with five or more people. , a total of 176 apartments (93.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 6 apartments (3.2%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (3.2%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 2.9 new units per 1000 residents. In 2012, single family homes made up 65.5% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Economy
, Bettenhausen had an unemployment rate of 1.8%. , there were a total of 137 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 41 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 15 businesses involved in this sector. The secondary sector employs 46 people and there were 10 businesses in this sector. The tertiary sector employs 50 people, with 14 businesses in this sector. There were 247 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.5% of the workforce.