Bätterkinden is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is about north of Bern.
History
Bätterkinden is first mentioned in 1261 as Beturchingen.
During the High Middle Ages there was a settlement on the Zwingherrenhubel. By 1261, Bätterkinden village was part of the Kyburg Amt of Utzenstorf. In 1406, the Kyburgs pledged Bätterkinden to Heinrich Ringoltingen to repay some of their debts. He combined Bätterkinden and Utzenstorf into the Herrschaft of Landshut. In 1510, Bern acquired Bätterkinden and four years later the rest of the Herrschaft of Landshut.
Following the 1798 French invasion, Bätterkinden became part of the Helvetic Republic district of Burgdorf. After the Act of Mediation in 1803, it was transferred to the Fraubrunnen district. The village was destroyed in a fire and rebuilt in 1882. The new Zelgli district was built in 1979.
The village church was first mentioned in 1275. The church, along with a farm in Gächliwil, was originally owned by the Herrschaft of Buchegg. In 1399 the church and its estates were given to the hospice in Bern. In 1595 the church was administered by the bailiff in Landshut. The old church was replaced in 1664 by a new building.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, farmers began to grow potatoes and sugar beets and raise cattle in addition to grain which they had traditionally raised. A dairy was built in Bätterkinden in 1848 and in Krailigen in 1867 for the new dairy farmers. An agricultural cooperative was founded in 1897 to support the farmers. The village was once on the Bern-Solothurn-Basel highway and had a toll station in Krailigen, but now it is bypassed by the major transportation routes. While the Bern-Solothurn railway station and a bridge over the Emme river provide local transportation, very little industry settled in the village. A wood pulp factory opened in 1865 and converted into a paper mill in 1893 before closing in 1930. In 1921 a gravel factory opened and it converted into a concrete factory in 1974. A metal parts factory opened in 1949. While some of the residents work in local industry or agriculture, over two-thirds of workers, in 1990, commuted to jobs in Bern. The municipal secondary school was founded in 1846 as a private school.
Geography
Bätterkinden has an area of . Of this area, or 57.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 24.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 15.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.1% is either rivers or lakes.
Over the past two decades (1979/85-2004/09) the amount of land that is settled has increased by and the agricultural land has decreased by .
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 7.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.9%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 50.7% is used for growing crops and 6.4% is pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
Bätterkinden lies west of the Emme and Urtenen rivers, and on the Limpach river. It consists of the villages of Bätterkinden and Kräiligen and the hamlets of Alp, Holzhäusern and Berchtoldshof as well as scattered farm houses. The municipality is runs about north to south.
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 Emmental.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules an Ear Or and in Chief of the last three Pales wavy Azure.
Demographics
Bätterkinden has a population () of . , 6.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 3 years (2010-2013) the population has changed at a rate of -0.06%. The birth rate in the municipality, in 2013, was 10.8 while the death rate was 8.3 per thousand residents.
Most of the population () speaks German (2,562 or 94.9%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (21 or 0.8%) and Italian is the third (16 or 0.6%). There are 15 people who speak French and 2 people who speak Romansh.