Niederhünigen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Niederhünigen is first mentioned in 1148 as Huningen inferior.
During the Middle Ages, Niederhünigen village was part of the Herrschaft of Hünigen. It was originally ruled by the Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Senn von Münsingen. By 1380 or 1393 the village was owned by the Bokess family from Thun. After they sold it in 1421, it passed through a number of owners. In the 16th century the medieval Hünigen water castle outside the village was destroyed in a fire. In 1554, Niklaus von Scharnachtal had a new Hünigen Castle built near the mill at Stalden. In 1588, the Bernese patrician von May family acquired the village and castle, which they occupied until 1922. The von May family also ruled the village until the 1798 French invasion and the creation of the Helvetic Republic. In 1933, the village of Stalden, with the castle, merged with Gysenstein to form Konolfingen. Niederhünigen has remained generally rural and agricultural into the 21st century.
Niederhünigen was part of the parish of Münsingen until 1911 when the parish of Stalden was formed. In the following year, the parish was renamed to Konolfingen and Niederhünigen remained a part of the new parish.
Geography
Niederhünigen has an area of . Of this area, or 51.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 42.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 6.1% is settled (buildings or roads).
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 4.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.8%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 28.3% is used for growing crops and 20.7% is pastures, while 2.2% is used for orchards or vine crops.
The municipality is located on the Kurzenberg and includes the village of Niederhünigen, the scattered settlement of Holz and part of the Kiesental (Kiesen Valley).
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 Gules two Swan Heads addorsed couped Argent beaked Or and in a Chief of the second a Mullet of the first.
Demographics
Niederhünigen has a population () of . , 3.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of -2%. Migration accounted for -3.7%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.2%.
Most of the population () speaks German (589 or 95.9%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (13 or 2.1%) and French is the third (3 or 0.5%).
, the population was 48.1% male and 51.9% female. The population was made up of 298 Swiss men (46.1% of the population) and 13 (2.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 327 Swiss women (50.6%) and 8 (1.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 176 or about 28.7% were born in Niederhünigen and lived there in 2000. There were 333 or 54.2% who were born in the same canton, while 51 or 8.3% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 39 or 6.4% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 25.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12%.
, there were 300 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 277 married individuals, 23 widows or widowers and 14 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 59 households that consist of only one person and 28 households with five or more people. , a total of 216 apartments (87.4% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 18 apartments (7.3%) were seasonally occupied and 13 apartments (5.3%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 3.1 new units per 1000 residents.
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 31.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (16.4%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (15%) and the Evangelical People's Party (EVP) (8.7%). In the federal election, a total of 262 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 53.5%.