Gondiswil (local dialect ''Gumiswil'') 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 Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of

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

Gondiswil is first mentioned in the mid-9th century as ''Cundolteswilare''. The only evidence of prehistoric people in Gondiswil are some scattered

neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

items that were found near Staldershaus. 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 ...

the major landowners were all local nobles. However, in 841-72 the Perchtgers donated land to the

Abbey of St. Gallen The Abbey of Saint Gall () is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian Renaissance, Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot wh ...

. In 1194 the Baron of Langenstein granted some land in Gondiswil to St. Urban's Abbey. Other religious houses also eventually acquired land in or around the village including the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monastery of St. Johannsen in Erlach in 1236 and the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

Thunstetten Commandery in 1263. During the

Late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

it was part of the court of Murgeten in Murgenthal and belonged to 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 Grünenberg. The entire Herrschaft was partially sold in 1432 and completely sold in 1480 to

. Under Bernese control Gondiswil and Melchnau formed a low court 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 Aarwangen. Religiously it was part of 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 ...

of Grossdietwil in Lucerne until 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 1528 it became part of the parish of Melchnau. In an effort to become their own parish, in 1737 the village built a cemetery. However, it took several centuries for this goal to be realized. Starting in 1856 or 1870 worship and Sunday school services were conducted in the village. In 1918 a church was completed. Then, in 1945 the Melchnau parish appointed a

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English p ...

to oversee Gondiswil. Finally in 1960, a

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

was built and the village became a parish. In 1300 in the hamlet of Freibach, the Lords of Büttikon built St. Mary's Chapel. During the 14th and 15th centuries, this chapel became a pilgrimage site and the headquarters of a regional

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

s fellowship. The chapel was demolished in 1528. During the 18th and 19th centuries, linen mills and a wooden shoe factory provided jobs outside of agriculture. In 1889 the Langenthal-Huttwil-Wolhusenbahn built a railroad and station through Gondiswil. During the First and Second World Wars there was a coal mine in the village.

Geography

Gondiswil has an area of . Of this area, or 69.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 24.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 5.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.1% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010 Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.0%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 40.4% is used for growing crops and 26.6% is pastures, while 2.2% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is located on the border with the

Canton of Lucerne The canton of Lucerne ( ; ; ; ) is a Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Switzerland. It is located in the country's central, German-speaking Switzerland, German-speaking part. The population of the canton (as of ) is . , the population included 57 ...

. It consists of the village of Gondiswil and the

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Freibach, Brüggenweid, Haltstelle, Staldershaus and Schwendi. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Aarwangen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Oberaargau.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 ''Azure a Trefoil issuant from a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Vert and in Chief two Mullets of Five Argent.''

Demographics

Gondiswil has a population () of . , 2.0% 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 -4.5%. Migration accounted for -2.8%, while births and deaths accounted for -2.3%.
accessed 17-May-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 ...

(715 or 97.4%) as their first language,

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

is the second most common (13 or 1.8%) and English is the third (3 or 0.4%). There is 1 person who speaks French and 1 person who speaks Romansh. , the population was 51.0% male and 49.0% female. The population was made up of 354 Swiss men (49.9% of the population) and 8 (1.1%) non-Swiss men. There were 342 Swiss women (48.2%) and 6 (0.8%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 374 or about 51.0% were born in Gondiswil and lived there in 2000. There were 235 or 32.0% who were born in the same canton, while 78 or 10.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 29 or 4.0% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.8% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 58% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 21.1%. , there were 298 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 370 married individuals, 43 widows or widowers and 23 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 72 households that consist of only one person and 28 households with five or more people. , a total of 279 apartments (87.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 15 apartments (4.7%) were seasonally occupied and 24 apartments (7.5%) 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 1.4 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.8%. 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:1500 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:694 text:"694" bar:1850 from:start till:1422 text:"1,422" bar:1860 from:start till:1237 text:"1,237" bar:1870 from:start till:1217 text:"1,217" bar:1880 from:start till:1195 text:"1,195" bar:1888 from:start till:1108 text:"1,108" bar:1900 from:start till:1008 text:"1,008" bar:1910 from:start till:1062 text:"1,062" bar:1920 from:start till:1088 text:"1,088" bar:1930 from:start till:984 text:"984" bar:1941 from:start till:953 text:"953" bar:1950 from:start till:958 text:"958" bar:1960 from:start till:906 text:"906" bar:1970 from:start till:840 text:"840" bar:1980 from:start till:757 text:"757" bar:1990 from:start till:735 text:"735" bar:2000 from:start till:734 text:"734"

Transportation

Gondiswil lies on the Wolhusen– Huttwil railway and has a station.

Politics

In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 48.3% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the BDP Party (17.9%), the SPS (8.3%) and the FDP (5.7%). In the federal election, a total of 300 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 50.2%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election
accessed 8 May 2012

Economy

In 1894 the Schieferkohle railway was founded. From 1918 to 1919, limited

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

occurred, but the beds were too small, and the mine collapsed, leaving a small lake. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, coal was again mined from the area. , Gondiswil had an unemployment rate of 0.44%. , there were a total of 228 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 135 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 51 businesses involved in this sector. 58 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. 35 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 13 businesses in this sector. there were a total of 158

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 79, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 51 of which 39 or (76.5%) were in manufacturing and 12 (23.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 28. In the tertiary sector; 8 or 28.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 14.3% were in a hotel or restaurant and 8 or 28.6% were in education. , there were 48 workers who commuted into the municipality and 238 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 5.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 7% used public transportation to get to work, and 58.2% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 40 or 5.4% 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 645 or 87.9% 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 2 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.27% of the population), and there were 11 individuals (or about 1.50% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 6 (or about 0.82% 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. 18 (or about 2.45% 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 17 individuals (or about 2.32% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Gondiswil about 294 or (40.1%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 58 or (7.9%) 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 58 who completed tertiary schooling, 75.9% were Swiss men, 19.0% were Swiss women. 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 67 students attending classes in Gondiswil. There were no kindergarten classes in the municipality. The municipality had 3 primary classes and 52 students. Of the primary students, 3.8% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 1.9% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there was one lower secondary class with a total of 15 students. There were 6.7% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 6.7% have a different mother language than the classroom language.Schuljahr 2010/11 pdf document
accessed 4 January 2012 , there were 9 students in Gondiswil who came from another municipality, while 25 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Bern