Uetendorf (Highest Alemannic: Üetedorf) is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
Uetendorf is close to the city of Thun, and connected to traffic through the A6 motorway and the BLS AG's Thun-Belp-Bern railway line. Due to its favourable geographic situation, it is home to several small to medium-sized industry companies, most notably the "Sarner Cristal" Glass Hut.
History Uetendorf is first mentioned in 994 as udendorf.
The number of scattered neolithic, Bronze Age and La Tène artifacts indicate that the area around Uetendorf was home to many prehistoric settlements. During the Roman era, in the 2nd century AD, there was a large country estate near the modern village. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire the estate probably remained in operation and eventually became a royal estate under the Kings of Burgundy. In 994, Emperor Otto III donated many of his royal estates, including Uetendorf, to support the imperial Selz Abbey in Alsace. The estate and village apparently passed through several owners over the next centuries. In 1232 the Lords of Uetendorf appear in records as members of the city council of Bern. In 1370 they apparently sold Uetendorf to Johann Zeinigen of Thun. He and his descendants owned the village and lands until some time in the 15th century, when they were sold to the hospital in Thun. In 1521 the hospital combined Uetendorf, Längenbühl and Uttigen together into the municipality of Uetendorf in the district court of Seftigen where it remained for over two centuries. In 1783 it became a municipality in the Thun District where it remains today.
The village of Uetendorf was part of the parish of Amsoldingen. In 1528 Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and the entire parish converted. In 1578 it became part of the nearby parish of Thierachern, but remained without its own church until 1955.
The village economy was based on raising crops and livestock in the flood plains and valley floors of the Glütschbach and Kander rivers. However, the frequent floods forced the villages to build and maintain an extensive network of levees and dikes. During the 1860s the Aare River correction projects finally reduced the flood risk and drained the swampy land around the rivers. The projects opened up additional farm land and reduced losses due to flooding.
The completion of the Gürbetal railroad in 1902 connected the village with its neighbors and the growing city of Thun. The railroad brought industry and jobs to the municipality. In 1953 the Selve AG metal works opened in the village. The large factory brought other machinery and engineering companies into the municipality and fueled population growth. Completion of the A8 motorway in 1971 provided another connection for the growing population. Along with small businesses and factories, a waste water treatment plant was built. Today the plant treats water for 32 neighboring communities. When the factory closed in 1993, the local economy was diversified enough that the population remained steady. In 2005 about 70% of the working population commuted to jobs outside the municipality, however about 48% of the jobs in Uetendorf were filled by workers who commuted into the municipality.
The Eichberg estate, which was built in 1792–1793 for Carolus von Fischer, became a boarding school in 1932. The boarding school remained open until 1984. The Uetendorfberg Switzerland Foundation opened a school and residence for the deaf in 1921.
Uetendorf had its own primary school and shared a secondary school with Thierachern. However the secondary school district dissolved in 1959, forcing the municipality to build their own school in that year.
Geography Uetendorf has an area of . As of the 2004 survey, a total of or 71.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 7.9% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 20.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes. Between the 1981 and 2004 surveys the settled area increased from to , an increase of 36.77%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics 2009 data accessed 27 August 2014
From the same survey, industrial buildings made up 3.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.5%. A total of 6.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 53.4% is used for growing crops and 15.9% is pasturage, while 1.9% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is on the western edge of the Aare valley. It consists of the village of Uetendorf, which is made up of the Dorf, Berg and Allmend neighborhoods, as well as scattered farm houses.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Thun, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Thun.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz accessed 4 April 2011
Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is "Azure on a Bend Argent three Roses Gules barbed and seeded proper".Flags of the World.com accessed 10 October 2014
Demographics Uetendorf has a population () of . , 5.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last two years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -0.8%. Migration accounted for -1.4%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.1%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 10 October 2014
Most of the population () speaks German (5,434 or 95.3%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (44 or 0.8%) and various African languages (not further specified) are the third (43 or 0.8%). There are 41 people who speak French, 31 people who speak Italian and one person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 49.6% male and 50.4% female. The population was composed of 2,756 Swiss men (46.2% of the population) and 202 (3.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 2,845 Swiss women (47.7%) and 163 (2.7%) non-Swiss women.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Ständige Wohnbevölkerung nach Staatsangehörigkeit, Geschlecht und Gemeinde accessed 7 October 2014 Of the population in the municipality, 1,426 or about 25.0% were born in Uetendorf and lived there in 2000. There were 3,000 or 52.6% who were born in the same canton, while 667 or 11.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 397 or 7.0% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.0% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.0% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 20.0%.
, there were 2,258 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,878 married individuals, 293 widows or widowers and 273 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000 accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 720 households that consisted of only one person and 140 households with five or more people.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Haushaltsgrösse accessed 8 May 2013 , a total of 2,223 apartments (93.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 108 apartments (4.5%) were seasonally occupied and 50 apartments (2.1%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 1.5 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.5%. In 2012, single family homes made up 58.5% of the total housing in the municipality.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Anteil Einfamilienhäuser am gesamten Gebäudebestand, 2012 accessed 5 August 2014
The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850-2000 accessed 29 January 2011Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Ständige Wohnbevölkerung in Privathaushalten nach Gemeinde und Haushaltsgrösse accessed 12 August 2013
Economy , Uetendorf had an unemployment rate of 1.2%. , there were a total of 3,111 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 127 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 46 businesses involved in this sector. The secondary sector employs 1,227 people and there were 115 businesses in this sector. The tertiary sector employs 1,757 people, with 322 businesses in this sector. There were 3,057 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.4% of the workforce.
there were a total of 2,395 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 87, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 1,163 of which 556 or (47.8%) were in manufacturing and 584 (50.2%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 1,145. In the tertiary sector; 480 or 41.9% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 95 or 8.3% were in the movement and storage of goods, 24 or 2.1% were in a hotel or restaurant, 24 or 2.1% were in the information industry, 99 or 8.6% were technical professionals or scientists, 65 or 5.7% were in education and 157 or 13.7% were in health care.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3 accessed 28 January 2011
, there were 1,464 workers who commuted into the municipality and 2,157 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 900 workers (38.1% of the 2,364 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Uetendorf.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 16.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 51.8% used a private car.
The local and cantonal tax rate in Uetendorf is one of the lowest in the canton. In 2012 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Uetendorf making 150,000 CHF was 11.5%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 17.2%.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Steuerbelastung, 2012 Politische Gemeinden accessed 4 August 2014 For comparison, the average rate for the entire canton in 2011, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide average was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively.Swiss Federal Tax Administration - Grafische Darstellung der Steuerbelastung 2011 in den Kantonen accessed 17 June 2013
In 2010 there were a total of 2,688 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 890 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 17 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Uetendorf was 109,635 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 131,244 CHF.Federal Tax Administration Report Direkte Bundessteuer - Natürliche Personen - Gemeinden - Steuerjahr 2010 accessed 5 August 2014
In 2011 a total of 1.9% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Bezüger/-innen von Sozialhilfeleistungen (Sozialhilfeempfänger/-innen), 2011 accessed 18 June 2013
Politics In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 37.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (15.8%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (13.7%) and the Green Party (7.6%). In the federal election, a total of 2,407 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.8%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election accessed 8 May 2012
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