Sonceboz-Sombeval 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
Sonceboz-Sombeval is first mentioned in 866 as Summavallis. In 1179 it was mentioned as Sommeval and in 1303 it was Suntzelbo.
Its location at the foot of the historic Pierre Pertuis pass (in operation since the Roman era) made the villages an important stopping point and transportation hub. The Petinesca Roman road ran to the east of Sonceboz before it crossed the Jura mountains. The ruins of a 4th-century Roman settlement have been discovered at the Le Châtillon ridge. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, a medieval settlement developed over the Roman settlement. In 999 Moutier-Grandval Abbey gave the local farms and the Summavallis chapel to the Prince-Bishop of Basel. The Prince-Bishop assigned Moutier-Grandval Abbey to administer the village as the bailiff and the parish priest (placing the Abbey over the secular and spiritual needs of the village). This organization continued until Sonceboz and Sombeval accepted the Protestant Reformation in 1530. After the Reformation, the villages were under the secular administration of Erguel. After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Sonceboz-Sombeval 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, Sonceboz-Sombeval was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815.
The Chapel of St. Agatha in Sombeval became the parish church for the Sombeval parish in the 13th century. It was rebuilt in 1737 and again in 1866. Decades after the villagers accepted the new Reformed faith, in 1590 they became part of the Corgémont parish. They remained part of that parish until 1931.
Throughout the Early Modern period Sonceboz remained a small hamlet with only a few houses dependent on the larger village of Sombeval. However, in the early 18th century Sonceboz became an important staging post for trade over the pass. Beginning in 1849 the growth of the watch parts industry brought workers to the villages and forcing them to expand. In 1874 the Biel-Les Convers and Sonceboz-Tavannes railway lines opened and forever changed the character of the village. While Sombeval retained much of its rural character, the population and industry in Sonceboz exploded. With the population growing the two formerly independent villages merged as they physically grew together. In 1936 the watch parts manufacturer Société industrielle de Sonceboz built a factory in the village. In 1978, the flooring manufacturer Bienna SA built a factory in the municipality, which strengthened the industrial sector. By 2005, over two-thirds of the jobs in the municipality are manufacturing.
Geography
Sonceboz-Sombeval has an area of . Of this area, or 33.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 58.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 7.5% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.5% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.7%. Out of the forested land, 55.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.6% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 7.5% is used for growing crops and 14.4% is pastures and 11.3% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the Saint-Imier valley at the foot of the historic Pierre Pertuis pass. It consists of the villages of Sonceboz and Sombeval which have grown together.
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 Argent three Fir Trees Vert trunked Gules issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the second and in chief two Mullets of Five of the third.
Demographics
Sonceboz-Sombeval has a population () of . , 15.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 5.4%. Migration accounted for 0.7%, while births and deaths accounted for 3.6%.
Most of the population () speaks French (1,358 or 81.5%) as their first language, German is the second most common (202 or 12.1%) and Italian is the third (53 or 3.2%). There is 1 person who speaks Romansh.