Tramelan () is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (Jura Bernois).
History
Tramelan is first mentioned in 1179 as Trameleins. The municipality was formerly known by its German name Tremlingen, however, that name is no longer used.
During the Middle Ages the collegiate church of Saint-Imier was the major landholder in Tramelan. Politically, the villages were part of the seigniory of Erguel under the Prince-Bishop of Basel. From the 13th century until the mid 15th century there was a local noble family that ruled in Tramelan, probably as a fief under the Prince-Bishop. The village of Tramelan-le-Bas was first mentioned in 1334 while Tramelan-le-Haut appears in documents in 1358. In 1481, 1543 and 1581 the two villages met together to officially define their mutual border. In 1686, immigrants from Neuchâtel established the village of Mont-Tramelan.
After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Tramelan became part of the French Département of Mont-Terrible. Three years later, in 1800 it became part of the Département of Haut-Rhin. After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, Tramelan was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815.
Tramelan's village church was controlled by the Archbishop of Besançon and so formed an enclave in the diocese of Basel. In 1530, the villages accepted the Protestant Reformation and transferred their allegiance to Basel. In 1839, the church was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt in 1843-44 and renovated in 1958 and enlarged in 2000. The Catholic Church of Saint-Michel was built in 1910.
In 1884 a narrow gauge railway connected Tramelan to Tavannes and in 1913 it was extended to Le Noirmont. At the beginning of the 18th century, the watch making industry slowly moved into Tramelan, eventually transforming the villages into an industrial center. In 1896, there were about 2,500 factory and home workers involved in the industry. The engineering and machining expertise gained from the watch industry allowed Tramelan to diversify into other manufacturing in the 20th century. By 1958 there were 75 manufacturing companies with around 1,400 workers. During the economic crisis of the 1970s, demand for watches disappeared and many workshops and factories were forced to close, leading to a population decline. One of the largest factories, which had opened in 1903 and was acquired by Longines in 1961, closed in 1983. However, by the late 1990s the watch industry had rebounded and watch part plants and workshops reopened. In 2005, just over 40% of the jobs in the municipality were in manufacturing.
Geography
Tramelan has an area of . Of this area, or 58.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 31.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 1.2% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.7%. Out of the forested land, 27.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 6.8% is used for growing crops and 34.2% is pastures and 17.3% is used for alpine pastures.
The municipality is located in the Bernese Jura. It was formed in 1952 when the formerly independent municipalities of Tramelan-Dessus and Tramelan-Dessous merged to form Tramelan.
On 31 December 2009 District de Courtelary, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Arrondissement administratif Jura bernois.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules on a Bend sinister Argent three Linden Leaves issuant from chief of the first.
Demographics
Tramelan has a population () of . , 11.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 1.7%. Migration accounted for 3.7%, while births and deaths accounted for -1.7%.
Most of the population () speaks French (3,593 or 86.3%) as their first language, German is the second most common (343 or 8.2%) and Italian is the third (85 or 2.0%).