Höfen is a former municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Höfen, Niederstocken and Oberstocken merged into the new municipality of Stocken-Höfen.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz accessed 13 December 2014
Geography
Before the merger, Höfen had a total area of . Of this area, or 74.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 16.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.7% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics 2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.8%. 14.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 23.9% is used for growing crops and 48.2% is pastures, while 2.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is in lakes. Of the unproductive areas, 1.7% is unproductive vegetation.
The lake Uebeschisee is located partially in the former municipality.
Demographics Höfen had a population (as of 2011) of 444. , 2.1% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -3.5%. Most of the population () speaks German (98.7%), with French being second most common ( 0.3%) and Rhaeto-romance being third ( 0.3%).
In the 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 49.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Green Party (12.3%), the SPS (11.6%) and the local small left-wing parties (10.7%).
The age distribution of the population () is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 29.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 59.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 11.3%. The entire Swiss population is generally well educated. In Höfen about 77.7% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule).
Höfen has an unemployment rate of 0.92%. , there were 65 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 26 businesses involved in this sector. 9 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 3 businesses in this sector. 56 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 10 businesses in this sector."Key figures: Regional portraits 2013: Communes" (2013) Swiss Federal Statistical Office pages 1917–1918, accessed 12 October 2015 The historical population is given in the following table: year population 1764 184 1850 456 1900 342 1930 291 1950 341 2000 398
References
External links Official website of the municipality in