Dotzigen is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the Seeland administrative district in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative divisions * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and entertainment * Canton (band), an It ...

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

History

Dotzigen is first mentioned in 1182 as ''Tocingen''. The earliest trace of settlements in Dotzigen are six

Hallstatt Hallstatt () is a small town in the district of Gmunden District, Gmunden, in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. Situated between the southwestern shore of Hallstätter See and the steep slopes of the Dachstein massif, the town lies in the Sa ...

grave mounds on the Dotzigenberg. This was followed by a

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

settlement near the current village center. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

it was part of the ''

Herrschaft The German term ''Herrschaft'' (plural: ''Herrschaften'') covers a broad semantic field and only the context will tell whether it means, "rule", "power", "dominion", "authority", "territory" or "lordship". In its most abstract sense, it refers ...

'' of Strassberg, which was acquired in 1393 by

. It was part of the low court of Diesbach in the

bailiwick A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. In English, the original French combi ...

of Büren. The village church of St. Mauritius was first mentioned in 1242. After the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

, in 1531, it came under Bernese control and the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

was immediately dissolved. At first the village was part of the parish of Büren and then later of Diessbach. The village was along the Büren-

Aarberg Aarberg is a List of towns in Switzerland, historic town and a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Seeland (administrative district), Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Aarberg lies from Bern abov ...

road and the inhabitants traded produce to those towns and operated a rest station. The

Jura water correction The correction of the waters of the Swiss Jura consisted of a wide series of hydrological undertakings carried out in Switzerland in the region of the three lakes: Lake Murten connected to Lake Neuchatel by the Broye Canal, the latter connec ...

projects of the 19th century helped prevent flooding and destruction in the village. In 1876 the

Solothurn Solothurn ( ; ; ; ; ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissenstein Jura mountains. The town is ...

Lyss Lyss () is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Seeland (administrative district), Seeland administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2011, the former municip ...

railroad connected the village to those larger cities. Easy transportation links allowed commercial and industrial developments in Dotzigen. A distillery opened in 1888, followed by a brick factory in 1891 and a Parketterie furniture factory in 1898. Despite the presence of an agricultural cooperative and a metal foundry, in 2000 over two-thirds of the labor force commuted to towns such as Biel, Lyss and Grenchen. The historic Schlössli outside the village was built in 1898 by the brick manufacturer Johann Schaller.

Geography

Dotzigen has an area of . Of this area, or 55.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 26.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 1.2% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.7% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 7.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.8%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 46.2% is used for growing crops and 7.3% is pastures, while 2.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Dotzigen lies in Seeland at the western edge of the Dotzigen/Stedtli Mountains. In the west the Old Aare flows (the part of the

Aare The Aare () or Aar () is the main tributary of the High Rhine (its discharge even exceeds that of the latter at their confluence) and the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. Its total length from its source to i ...

River that flows after the

); it is now a protected

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

. The Jura water correction made possible the expansion of the town in the flat area of the municipality. 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 Seeland.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
accessed 4 April 2011

Coat of arms

The

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct an accurate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The visual d ...

of the municipal

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

is ''Gules in a Chief Argent a Mullet of the first.''

Demographics

Dotzigen has a population () of . , 6.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012 Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of -2.1%. Migration accounted for -1.3%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.2%.
accessed 20-August-2012 Most of the population () speaks

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

(1,304 or 93.7%) as their first language,

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

is the second most common (21 or 1.5%) and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

is the third (13 or 0.9%). There are 3 people who speak Romansh. , the population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female. The population was made up of 619 Swiss men (46.5% of the population) and 46 (3.5%) non-Swiss men. There were 630 Swiss women (47.3%) and 3 (0.2%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 401 or about 28.8% were born in Dotzigen and lived there in 2000. There were 595 or 42.8% who were born in the same canton, while 203 or 14.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 125 or 9.0% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 21.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 65% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 13.8%. , there were 562 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 682 married individuals, 80 widows or widowers and 67 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 118 households that consist of only one person and 36 households with five or more people. , a total of 491 apartments (92.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 18 apartments (3.4%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (4.5%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 0.8 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.56%. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width:1020 height:210 PlotArea = top:10 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:1400 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:300 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:60 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:115 text:"115" bar:1850 from:start till:250 text:"250" bar:1860 from:start till:233 text:"233" bar:1870 from:start till:246 text:"246" bar:1880 from:start till:238 text:"238" bar:1888 from:start till:307 text:"307" bar:1900 from:start till:446 text:"446" bar:1910 from:start till:568 text:"568" bar:1920 from:start till:762 text:"762" bar:1930 from:start till:759 text:"759" bar:1941 from:start till:686 text:"686" bar:1950 from:start till:793 text:"793" bar:1960 from:start till:869 text:"869" bar:1970 from:start till:951 text:"951" bar:1980 from:start till:1015 text:"1,015" bar:1990 from:start till:1336 text:"1,336" bar:2000 from:start till:1391 text:"1,391"

Sights

Jeremias Gotthelf Albert Bitzius (4 October 179722 October 1854) was a Swiss novelist, best known by his pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf. Biography Bitzius was born at Murten, where his father was pastor. The Bitzius family had once belonged to the Bernese patric ...

mentioned the sour Dotziger wine in one of his books, which grew and continues to grow at the foot of the mountains. At the foot of the Dotzigen Mountains is a small castle, known for its gilded copper roof. At the exit of the town in the direction of Diessbach is an old flour mill powered by a

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous b ...

. This has been restored and is available to visitors by reservation. The old mill is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 31.7% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the BDP Party (21.1%), the SPS (19.6%) and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

(6.8%). In the federal election, a total of 507 votes were cast, and the

voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...

was 49.1%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

, Dotzigen had an unemployment rate of 1.87%. , there were a total of 525 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 28 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 11 businesses involved in this sector. 48 people were employed in the

secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in constructi ...

and there were 10 businesses in this sector. 449 people were employed in the

tertiary sector The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...

, with 36 businesses in this sector. there were a total of 429

full-time equivalent Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit of measurement that indicates the workload of an employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often use ...

jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 23, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 39 of which 22 or (56.4%) were in manufacturing and 17 (43.6%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 367. In the tertiary sector; 259 or 70.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 17 or 4.6% were in education and 76 or 20.7% were in health care. , there were 295 workers who commuted into the municipality and 572 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 13.4% used public transportation to get to work, and 59.9% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 165 or 11.9% were

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, while 1,032 or 74.2% belonged to the

Swiss Reformed Church The Protestant Church in Switzerland (PCS), formerly named Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches until 31 December 2019, is a federation of 25 member churches – 24 cantonal churches and the Evangelical-Methodist Church of Switzerland. The P ...

. Of the rest of the population, there were 5 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.36% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 57 individuals (or about 4.10% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 31 (or about 2.23% of the population) who were

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic. There were 6 individuals who were

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and 2 individuals who belonged to another church. 82 (or about 5.90% of the population) belonged to no church, are

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 38 individuals (or about 2.73% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Dotzigen about 572 or (41.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory

upper secondary education Secondary education is the education level following primary education and preceding tertiary education. Level 2 or ''lower secondary education'' (less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is considered the second and final phase of basic e ...

, and 126 or (9.1%) have completed additional higher education (either

university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

or a ''

Fachhochschule A (; plural ), abbreviated FH, is a university of applied sciences (UAS), in other words a Hochschule, German tertiary education institution that provides professional education in many applied sciences and applied arts, such as engineering, te ...

''). Of the 126 who completed tertiary schooling, 77.8% were Swiss men, 16.7% were Swiss women, 4.8% were non-Swiss men. The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

, followed by six years of Primary school. This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude. Following the lower Secondary students may attend additional schooling or they may enter an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...

. During the 2009-10 school year, there were a total of 222 students attending classes in Dotzigen. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 24 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 16.7% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 12.5% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 4 primary classes and 65 students. Of the primary students, 3.1% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 3.1% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 7 lower secondary classes with a total of 133 students. There were 2.3% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 4.5% have a different mother language than the classroom language.Schuljahr 2010/11 pdf document
accessed 4 January 2012 , there were 84 students in Dotzigen who came from another municipality, while 52 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Transportation

Dotzigen was connected to the Swiss railway network by the construction of the

-Bahn in 1876. Today the trains run only to

Büren an der Aare Büren an der Aare (usually abbreviated with Büren a.A., means ''Büren on the Aare'') is a historic town and a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Büren an der Aare is first ment ...

, or

Kerzers Kerzers is a municipality in the district of See in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. Its French name is Chiètres (; ). History Kerzers is first mentioned in 926 as ''Cartris''. In 1153 it was mentioned as ''Kercers''. Geography Kerze ...

on the other side. Dotzigen can be reached in a car via A5 (Solothurn-Biel).

References

External links

*
Vereinigung für Heimatpflege Büren
Distributor of numerous publications about Dotzigen and the Büren district {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Bern Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Bern