Lauperswil is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Lauperswil is first mentioned in 1275 as Loperswile.
Lauperswil and the surrounding area were inhabited during the Middle Ages and were part of the Herrschaft of Wartenstein. By the Late Middle Ages Trub Abbey was the largest landowner in the municipality. It was part of the high court of Ranflüh, which was acquired by Bern in 1408. It was part of the Trachselwald bailiwick until the reorganization following the 1803 Act of Mediation moved it into the Signau District. The first bridge over the Emme river in the municipality was built in 1552. The village of Zollbrück grew up around the bridge and toll station. The Bern-Langnau railroad built a station in Lauperswil in 1864, followed by the Burgdorf-Langnau railroad in 1881. The two railroads combined with a new road in 1899, brought factories and industry to the municipality. Many of these new factories settled in Zollbrück and Emmenmatt. Today, many of the factories are still in operation, though outside the industrial zones, agriculture still provides a number of jobs.
The village church was first mentioned in 1275. In 1284 it came under the authority of Trub Abbey and in 1294 joined the Abbey parish. In 1518 the church was rebuilt and in the following year the stained glass windows were added. In 1528, Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and secularized all of Trub Abbey's lands. The parish was dissolved and the village church came under the control of the Bern Minster.
Geography
Lauperswil has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 56.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 35.3% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 7.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.6% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 3.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.6%. A total of 32.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 16.1% is used for growing crops and 38.1% is pasturage, while 1.9% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality includes the village of Lauperswil on the left bank of the Emme River and part of the village and bridge of Zollbrück over the Emme (the northern part of the bridge belongs to Rüderswil). The small settlements of Emmenmatt, Bomatt, Mungnau and Obermatt, and the hamlets of Wittenbach, Längenbach and Ebnit as well as individual farm houses on both sides of the Emme also belong to the municipality. In 1889, Lauperswil acquired the section known as the Wittenbachviertel (Wittenbach quarter) from Rüderswil.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Signau, 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 Argent a Lion rampant to sinister Gules and of the second a Ploughshare of the first.
Demographics
Lauperswil has a population () of . , 3.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -0.5%. Migration accounted for 0.6%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%.
Most of the population () speaks German (2,599 or 96.9%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (28 or 1.0%) and French is the third (8 or 0.3%). There are 6 people who speak Italian and 1 person who speaks Romansh.
, the population was 50.3% male and 49.7% female. The population was made up of 1,295 Swiss men (48.2% of the population) and 55 (2.0%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,292 Swiss women (48.1%) and 43 (1.6%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 1,074 or about 40.1% were born in Lauperswil and lived there in 2000. There were 1,158 or 43.2% who were born in the same canton, while 234 or 8.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 124 or 4.6% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 22.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 59.8% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 18.1%.
, there were 1,154 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 1,269 married individuals, 185 widows or widowers and 73 individuals who are divorced.