Renan 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
Renan is first mentioned in 1372 as Renens. The municipality was formerly known by its German name Rennen, however, that name is no longer used.
The village was owned by the collegiate church of Saint-Imier which was part of the seigniory of Erguel under the Prince-Bishop of Basel. After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Renan became part of the French Département of Mont-Terrible. A few years later, it became part of the Département of Haut-Rhin. After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, Renan was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815. Following an unsuccessful revolt in Neuchâtel in 1831, a number of the insurgents took refuge in Renan. Following the French Revolution of 1848, the people of the neighboring canton of Neuchâtel made preparations for a republican coup. A republican leader Ami Girard raised a body two hundred volunteers and on 1 March 1848 set out from Renan to join the Neuchâtel Revolution. By 8pm that evening, Neuchâtel Castle fell to the volunteers and on 5 March, ambassadors from Switzerland had recognized the new government and the Republic of Neuchatel was formed.
The village was part of the parish of Erguel and converted to the Reformed faith along with the rest of the Erguel. In 1627 the Prince-Bishop approved the construction of a village church in Renan. It was completed in 1631 and was renovated in 1976-77.
During the late 17th century the village economy was booming as the watch industry spread in the Saint-Imier valley. In 1874, the Biel-Les Convers railway connected the village to the national railway network. The Great Depression in the 1930s devastated the Swiss watch industry and the economy of Renan. However, the watch industry held on and grew once again after World War II. In the 1970s the watch industry was once again devastated and this time the local industry did not survive. At the beginning of the 21st century Renan's economy was dominated by agriculture. In 2005, the agricultural sector provided over one-third of all jobs in the municipality.
Geography
Renan has an area of . Of this area, or 59.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 33.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 3.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.9%. Out of the forested land, 29.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 4.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 7.7% is used for growing crops and 37.0% is pastures and 14.8% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located in the upper Saint-Imier valley. The high valley of Les Convers, in which marshlands the Suze takes its source is located on its territory.
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 on a Bar Vert a Mullet Or.
Demographics
Renan has a population () of . , 11.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 9.4%. Migration accounted for 12.1%, while births and deaths accounted for -1.2%.
Most of the population () speaks French (590 or 70.6%) as their first language, German is the second most common (216 or 25.8%) and Italian is the third (9 or 1.1%). There is 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 49.5% male and 50.5% female. The population was made up of 370 Swiss men (43.5% of the population) and 51 (6.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 382 Swiss women (44.9%) and 48 (5.6%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 242 or about 28.9% were born in Renan and lived there in 2000. There were 205 or 24.5% who were born in the same canton, while 245 or 29.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 87 or 10.4% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17%.
, there were 358 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 374 married individuals, 62 widows or widowers and 42 individuals who are divorced.