Rüegsau is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the Swiss canton of Bern.
History
Rüegsau is first mentioned in 1139 as Ruxow. In 1229 it was mentioned as Ruchisowe. The name comes from ruggere aue, in modern German ruhe Aue, meaning calm floodplain. From the late 13th century until 1528 it was the location of Rüegsau Priory, a Benedictine nunnery.
The oldest trace of a settlement is a neolithic artifact discovered in Rüegsau village. The first trace of a modern settlement is in the first half of the 12th century when Rüegsau Abbey was probably founded. While very little is known about the early history of the abbey, it was probably founded by Thüring von Lützelflüh around the same time that he founded Trub Abbey. It is unknown whether the village grew up around the abbey or was already here when the abbey was founded.
The first known provost appears in the abbey in 1256–99. There was a Meisterin over the nuns in 1320 and an abbess is first mentioned in 1526–28. The abbey ruled over a section of the lower Emmental including Rüegsau and Affoltern im Emmental. In 1454 it had its own seal. In 1528 the city of Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and in the same year secularized all monasteries including Rüegsau Abbey. Its goods were used to provide income for the priests of Rüegsau and Lützelflüh, and part of the buildings was used to provide a priest's house. The remaining buildings were gradually dismantled: the last traces of the walls were removed between 1825 and 1831.
The priory church became the village church. It was renovated in 1789–1790 and extended in 1874. Further renovations took place in 1947, 1990 and 1999.
In 1763 a wooden, covered bridge was built over the Emme river connecting Hasle bei Burgdorf and Rüegsau. In 1881 the Burgdorf-Langnau railroad built a station in Hasle-Rüegsau. The railroad combined with the expansion of the Emmental road in 1899, brought factories to the formerly rural village. Today the services sector has surpassed industry, but agriculture and manufacturing are still an important part of the local economy.
Geography
Rüegsau is located in the lower Emmental. It borders the Emme and then stretches north-east-ward. It contains the villages of Rüegsauschachen, Rüegsau, Rüegsbach and Rinderbach and several hamlets. The municipality has the approximate shape of a rectangle with a width of and a length of .
Rüegsau has an area of . As of the 2005/06 survey, a total of or 67.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 23.1% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 8.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes.
From the same survey, housing and buildings made up 5.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.3%. A total of 20.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 19.9% is used for growing crops and 45.6% is pasturage, while 1.8% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Trachselwald, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Emmental.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Gules a Latin Cross pattee couped Argent and of the last a Bend wavy Azure.
Demographics
Rüegsau has a population () of . , 3.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of 1.3%. Migration accounted for 2.5%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.0%.
Most of the population () speaks German (2,861 or 97.5%) as their first language, Italian is the second most common (13 or 0.4%) and French is the third (12 or 0.4%).
, the population was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. The population was made up of 1,480 Swiss men (47.3% of the population) and 62 (2.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,523 Swiss women (48.7%) and 61 (2.0%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 1,096 or about 37.3% were born in Rüegsau and lived there in 2000. There were 1,277 or 43.5% who were born in the same canton, while 290 or 9.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 158 or 5.4% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.7% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 59.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 19.6%.
, there were 1,225 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,393 married individuals, 217 widows or widowers and 100 individuals who are divorced.