Landiswil is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Landiswil is first mentioned in 1277 as Landoloswile.
The oldest trace of a settlement are some scattered neolithic and Late Bronze Age artifacts. During the Middle Ages, the villages of Landiswil and Obergoldbach were both part of the parish of Biglen. The Durrach and Spiegelberg families from Solothurn owned the village of Landiswil until 1421 when it was given to the Niedern Spital in Bern. Obergoldbach was owned by several wealthy families from Bern, including, between 1469 and 1471, the Schultheiss Peter Kistler. In 1422 Bern combined the two villages into a single court. Then, in 1471 they combined the courts of Landiswil and Biglen and placed the new court under in the district of Konolfingen. In 1529 the combined court was placed under the authority of the Landvogt of Signau. The village of Landiswil remained part of the parish of Biglen until they built a village church in 1954. The village was home to two famous spas during the 19th century, the Tannental and the Löchlibad, but both closed by the early 20th century.
Geography
Landiswil has an area of . Of this area, or 62.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 32.5% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.0% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.7%. Out of the forested land, 30.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.3% is used for growing crops and 39.8% is pastures, while 2.3% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
It is located in the upper Goldbach Valley and includes the villages of Landiswil and Obergoldbach as well as individual farm houses.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Konolfingen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Gules and Argent overall a Fir Tree Vert issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the same and in chief dexter letter L Or and in sinister a Mullet of the last.
Demographics
Landiswil has a population () of . , 1.6% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 0.8%. Migration accounted for 0.6%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.2%. Most of the population () speaks German (652 or 99.5%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (2 or 0.3%) and Spanish is the third (1 or 0.2%).
, the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. The population was made up of 311 Swiss men (49.6% of the population) and 2 (0.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 306 Swiss women (48.8%) and 8 (1.3%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 329 or about 50.2% were born in Landiswil and lived there in 2000. There were 257 or 39.2% who were born in the same canton, while 28 or 4.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 8 or 1.2% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.5% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 57.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.7%.
, there were 282 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 321 married individuals, 35 widows or widowers and 17 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 48 households that consist of only one person and 35 households with five or more people. , a total of 224 apartments (89.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 19 apartments (7.6%) were seasonally occupied and 8 apartments (3.2%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 1.6 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.46%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 61.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (16%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (6.8%) and the Green Party (4%). In the federal election, a total of 279 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.5%.