Brenzikofen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Brenzikofen is first mentioned in 1236 as Brenzichovin.
During the Late Middle Ages Interlaken Abbey owned much of the land in the village. The remainder of the land was owned by wealthy citizens of the towns of Bern and Thun. During the Middle Ages, Diessenberg Castle was built on Bürglen hill above the village. Little is known about the castle and today only portions of the wall and ditch are still visible. Bern gradually acquired more rights in the village over the following centuries. In 1528, Bern adopted the Protestant Reformation and secularized Interlaken Abbey and all of its land holdings, including Brenzikofen. Beginning in 1652, it was part of the district of Thun. Following the 1798 French invasion, under the Helvetic Republic it became part of the district of Konolfingen. It has always remained part of the parish of Oberdiessbach.
The village was part of a school district with Herbligen until 1834. The district was reestablished in 1973, when a new school house was built. In 1898, the Burgdorf-Thun railroad built a station in Brenzikofen. In 1983, the central Army Catering Headquarters was established and became the major employer in the village.
Geography
Brenzikofen has an area of . Of this area, or 54.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 37.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 8.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.5% is either rivers or lakes.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 5.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.7%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 28.6% is used for growing crops and 20.0% is pastures, while 5.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality is located at the foot of the Falkenfluh peak, and stretches to the Rothachengraben. It includes the village of Brenzikofen and the village sections of Boden and Bälliz as well as scattered 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 Gules a Lion rampant Or holding in dexter above his head a Sword of the same.
Demographics
Brenzikofen has a population () of . , 2.1% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of -2.3%. Migration accounted for -3%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.6%.
Most of the population () speaks German (480 or 99.0%) as their first language, Danish is the second most common (2 or 0.4%) and English is the third (1 or 0.2%).
, the population was 49.7% male and 50.3% female. The population was made up of 259 Swiss men (48.8% of the population) and 5 (0.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 261 Swiss women (49.2%) and 6 (1.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 153 or about 31.5% were born in Brenzikofen and lived there in 2000. There were 258 or 53.2% who were born in the same canton, while 54 or 11.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 13 or 2.7% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.8% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 64.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 13.7%.
, there were 216 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 227 married individuals, 24 widows or widowers and 18 individuals who are divorced.
, there were 55 households that consist of only one person and 18 households with five or more people. , a total of 184 apartments (90.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 13 apartments (6.4%) were seasonally occupied and 7 apartments (3.4%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.72%.
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 39.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (18%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (10.8%) and the Green Party (7.1%). In the federal election, a total of 217 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 52.3%.