Meinisberg is a municipality in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Meinisberg is first mentioned in 1332 as Meynesberg. The municipality was formerly known by its French name Montmenil, however, that name is no longer used.
The area has been settled since the Mesolithic and Neolithic ages, as finds near the Scheidwegen section of Meinisberg indicate. La Tène and Roman artifacts have been found near the Steinen section and a High Middle Ages wooden castle was found near Reibenwald. From the Late Middle Ages Meinisberg was ruled from Pieterlen which was under the authority of the Prince-Bishop of Basel. In 1816, it came under the authority of Bern and in 1833 became an independent community. At this time it was still part of the parish of Pieterlen. When the Nidau-Büren canal was built (1865–75), the Aare River now ran past Meinisberg. The community grew due to its location on the edge of the Naturschutzgebiets Häftli (Natural Park) and ease of reaching Biel/Bienne from Meinisberg.
Geography
Meinisberg has an area of . Of this area, or 54.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 5.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.9% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.2%. Out of the forested land, all the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 45.5% is used for growing crops and 7.2% is pastures, while 1.8% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 5.0% is in lakes and 0.2% is in rivers and streams.
The municipality is located at the foot of the Büttenberg mountain along the old Aare river course.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Büren, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Biel/Bienne.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is
Demographics
Meinisberg has a population () of . , 10.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 6.7%. Migration accounted for 4.2%, while births and deaths accounted for 3%.
Most of the population () speaks German (1,070 or 90.0%) as their first language, French is the second most common (46 or 3.9%) and Albanian is the third (18 or 1.5%). There are 7 people who speak Italian.
, the population was 50.4% male and 49.6% female. The population was made up of 564 Swiss men (44.4% of the population) and 76 (6.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 575 Swiss women (45.2%) and 5 (0.4%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 328 or about 27.6% were born in Meinisberg and lived there in 2000. There were 515 or 43.3% who were born in the same canton, while 190 or 16.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 127 or 10.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 57.3% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.7%.
, there were 450 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 646 married individuals, 49 widows or widowers and 44 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 97 households that consist of only one person and 30 households with five or more people. , a total of 460 apartments (93.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 15 apartments (3.1%) were seasonally occupied and 16 apartments (3.3%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 3.9 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.96%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 32.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the BDP Party (21.6%), the SPS (18.7%) and the FDP (5.9%). In the federal election, a total of 482 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.9%.
Economy
, Meinisberg had an unemployment rate of 1.31%. , there were a total of 218 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 26 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 11 businesses involved in this sector. 71 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 11 businesses in this sector. 121 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 32 businesses in this sector.