Le Landeron 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

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

canton of

Neuchâtel Neuchâtel (, ; ; ) is a list of towns in Switzerland, town, a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality, and the capital (political), capital of the cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Neuchâtel (canton), Neuchâtel on Lake Neuchâtel ...

History

Le Landeron is first mentioned about 1209 as ''Landiron''.

Prehistory

The first traces of human habitation near Le Landeron were the remains of a pottery workshop (961-957 BC) discovered on the banks of the

Thielle The river Thielle (, ), is a tributary to the Aare, in the Swiss Seeland. The Thielle results from the merging of the Orbe and Talent, northeast of the little city of Orbe in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It flows as a channel northeastwards thro ...

. At Les Carougets there is a grave from the late

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

, a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

villa and traces of the foundations of huts from the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

. Furthermore, several Roman statuettes have been discovered, including Hercules, a

rooster The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

and what may be a peacock.

Middle Ages

The name Le Landeron appears for the first time around 1209, as a place name mentioned in the fishing rights of the neighboring

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. Since it was given as a place name, it appears that the area where the town now stands was not inhabited. The nearby houses were up in the Jura hills and were grouped under the name Nugerol. The area around what is now La Tour was once the site of a fortification, which was destroyed around 1309. The

Duke of Austria From 976 until 1246, the Margraviate of Austria and its successor, the Duchy of Austria, was ruled by the House of Babenberg. At that time, those states were part of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1246 until 1918, the duchy and its successor, the A ...

forbade anyone to rebuild the fortifications. On 1 September 1325, Rudolph IV of Neuchâtel bought the Le Landeron meadow in the Thielle valley. In 1328-29 he built a fortified town there. The town was founded to protect the eastern part of the county of Neuchâtel and to control the streets and waterways of the Jura foothills. Le Landeron took the old rights of Nugerol which were comparable to those of citizens of Neuchatel. In 1350 Count Louis of Neuchâtel officially recognized that these rights applied to the town. In 1373, the new mistress of the town, Varenne of Neuchâtel, granted it some additional rights and it became the capital of the

Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often Hereditary title, hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than ...

y of Le Landeron. However, in 1424, the Barony came back under the direct rule of the Counts of Neuchatel. They retained the right to rule themselves as a mostly independent town. They had their own town banner and a town council in which the citizens of Cressier appointed a third of the members.

Early modern age

In 1449 Le Landeron entered into a treaty with Solothurn that was to shape the religious affairs of the town. During 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 ...

, the town's rulers were supported by Solothurn when they chose to remain by the old faith. Of all the neighboring municipalities, only Lignières converted to the Reformed faith in 1556. Since then, Le Landeron has stubbornly defended its religious particularity. The town remained loyal to Marie, the Duchess of Nemours during her conflicts with her step-daughter over the inheritance. After the extinction of her line in 1707, Le Landeron submitted to

Frederick I Frederick I or Friedrich I may refer to: * Frederick of Utrecht or Frederick I (815/16–834/38), Bishop of Utrecht. * Frederick I, Duke of Upper Lorraine (942–978) * Frederick I, Duke of Swabia (1050–1105) * Frederick I ...

, King of Prussia after he threatened military force.

Modern Le Landeron

After the founding of the Republic of Neuchâtel in 1848, the towns of Le Landeron and Cressier began to separate. Then, in 1868, they separated completely and each town granted citizenship in town to all residents. During the 19th century the traditional farming and

wine growing Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ...

town began to change. 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 ...

drained the surrounding swamps and opened up much of the valley to agriculture. In 1869-70 a train station was built and industry moved into the town. The first industries to settle in Le Landeron were parts suppliers for the watch industry. While the old town has preserved its compact and fortified appearance, many new homes were built on the Jura slopes. Because of the number of immigrants from

Reformed Reform is beneficial change. Reform, reformed or reforming may also refer to: Media * ''Reform'' (album), a 2011 album by Jane Zhang * Reform (band), a Swedish jazz fusion group * ''Reform'' (magazine), a Christian magazine Places * Reform, Al ...

areas into the town, they founded a Reformed

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 ...

in 1894. During the 20th century agriculture declined in importance (in 1910 there were 320 agriculture jobs while in 2000 it was only 45). Every year since 1973 one of the largest antiques markets in Switzerland (Fête de la brocante) is held in Le Landeron. In 1974, the town was connected to the A5 motorway. In 1991 one of the five secondary school regional centers of the Canton of Neuchâtel (Les Deux-Thielle) was opened in town. At the beginning of the 21st century it is a residential community with numerous, especially in the microtechnology industry, specialized small businesses and possessed the second-largest wine growing region in the canton.

Geography

Le Landeron has an area, , of . Of this area, or 39.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 43.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 15.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.5% 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 7.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.7%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.0%. Out of the forested land, 41.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 18.5% is used for growing crops and 13.0% is pastures, while 8.0% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality was located in the district of

, until the district level was eliminated on 1 January 2018. It is on a rocky

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and Rock (geology), rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a gla ...

island in the middle of the swampy

valley near

Lake Biel __NOTOC__ Lake Biel or Lake Bienne (; ) is a lake in western Switzerland. Together with Lake Morat and Lake Neuchâtel, it is one of the three large lakes in the Jura region of Switzerland. It lies on the language boundary between German and F ...

. The largely French-speaking town lies at Switzerland's language border with the

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 ...

-speaking 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 ...

. In 1875, Le Landeron and Combes were merged and the municipality was officially known as ''Landeron-Combes'' until 1966.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 19 July 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 ''Per fess, Or on a pale Gules three Chevrons Argent, and Azure two Pike nainaint proper.''

Demographics

Le Landeron has a population () of . , 17.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Superweb database - Gemeinde Statistics 1981-2008
accessed 19 June 2010 Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 3.8%. It has changed at a rate of 1.3% due to migration and at a rate of 3.4% due to births and deaths.
accessed 25-October-2011 Most of the population () speaks French (3,587 or 84.9%) as their first language,

is the second most common (328 or 7.8%) 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 (91 or 2.2%). There is 1 person who speaks Romansh. , the population was 48.8% male and 51.2% female. The population was made up of 1,734 Swiss men (39.0% of the population) and 436 (9.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 1,920 Swiss women (43.2%) and 354 (8.0%) non-Swiss women.Canton of Neuchatel Statistics
, ''République et canton de Neuchâtel - Recensement annuel de la population'' accessed 13 October 2011 Of the population in the municipality, 1,135 or about 26.9% were born in Le Landeron and lived there in 2000. There were 831 or 19.7% who were born in the same canton, while 1,355 or 32.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 779 or 18.4% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.8% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 61.7% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 13.5%. , there were 1,653 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 2,058 married individuals, 236 widows or widowers and 280 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 1,800 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. There were 602 households that consist of only one person and 85 households with five or more people. , a total of 1,744 apartments (90.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 149 apartments (7.7%) were seasonally occupied and 30 apartments (1.6%) 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 5.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 0.44%. 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 = height:150 left:100 bottom:50 right:100 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:4300 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:900 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:180 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1750 from:start till:591 text:"591" bar:1850 from:start till:1012 text:"1,012" bar:1860 from:start till:1216 text:"1,216" bar:1870 from:start till:1320 text:"1,320" bar:1880 from:start till:1325 text:"1,325" bar:1888 from:start till:1352 text:"1,352" bar:1900 from:start till:1423 text:"1,423" bar:1910 from:start till:1483 text:"1,483" bar:1920 from:start till:1598 text:"1,598" bar:1930 from:start till:1581 text:"1,581" bar:1941 from:start till:1581 text:"1,581" bar:1950 from:start till:1724 text:"1,724" bar:1960 from:start till:1952 text:"1,952" bar:1970 from:start till:2768 text:"2,768" bar:1980 from:start till:3287 text:"3,287" bar:1990 from:start till:3899 text:"3,899" bar:2000 from:start till:4227 text:"4,227"

Heritage sites of national significance

The Chapelle Ste-Anne, the Croix du Bourg, the

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 ...

and

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 ...

sites at the Ensemble de la Vieille Thielle, the Fountain de St-Maurice, the Fountain du Vaillant and the Town Hall with the Dix-Mille-Martyrs Chapel and Museum are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance. The entire town of Le Landeron is part of the

Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites The Federal Inventory of Heritage Sites (ISOS) is part of a 1981 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. Sites of national importance Types The types are based on t ...

. File:Picswiss NE-19-13.jpg , Chapelle Ste-Anne File:Croix Du Bourg.jpg, Croix Du Bourg File:Le Landeron Vieille Thielle 2.JPG, Ensemble de la Vieille Thielle File:Fontaine de Saint-Maurice, Le Landeron NE.jpg, Fontaine de Saint-Maurice File:Fontaine du Vaillant, Le Landeron.jpg, Fontaine du Vaillant File:Picswiss NE-19-03.jpg, Town hall and Chapel

Twin Town

Le Landeron is twinned with the town of

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 ...

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 ...

Politics

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SP which received 24.04% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (22.69%), the SVP (21.86%) and the LPS Party (12.35%). In the federal election, a total of 1,333 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 46.2%.

Economy

, Le Landeron had an unemployment rate of 5.6%. , there were 60 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 21 businesses involved in this sector. 339 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 38 businesses in this sector. 562 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 138 businesses in this sector. There were 2,151 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 43.7% of the workforce. the total number of

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 was 817. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 48, of which 44 were in agriculture and 4 were in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 321 of which 265 or (82.6%) were in manufacturing and 53 (16.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 448. In the tertiary sector; 151 or 33.7% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 7 or 1.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 49 or 10.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 4 or 0.9% were in the information industry, 16 or 3.6% were the insurance or financial industry, 41 or 9.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 66 or 14.7% were in education and 54 or 12.1% were in health care. , there were 420 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,574 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 3.7 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 1.2% of the workforce coming into Le Landeron are coming from outside Switzerland.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 11.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 68.5% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 1,498 or 35.4% 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 1,582 or 37.4% 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 17 members of an Orthodox church (or about 0.40% of the population), there was 1 individual who belongs to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 286 individuals (or about 6.77% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 93 (or about 2.20% 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 7 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 ...

, 2 individuals who were

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

and 4 individuals who belonged to another church. 695 (or about 16.44% 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 179 individuals (or about 4.23% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Le Landeron about 1,574 or (37.2%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 579 or (13.7%) 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 579 who completed tertiary schooling, 60.6% were Swiss men, 24.0% were Swiss women, 10.2% were non-Swiss men and 5.2% were non-Swiss women. In the canton of Neuchâtel most municipalities provide two years of non-mandatory

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 five years of mandatory primary education. The next four years of mandatory secondary education is provided at thirteen larger secondary schools, which many students travel out of their home municipality to attend. During the 2010–11 school year, there were 4.5 kindergarten classes with a total of 88 students in Le Landeron. In the same year, there were 13 primary classes with a total of 265 students.Statistical Department of the Canton of Neuchâtel
Mémento de l'année scolaire 2010/2011 accessed 17 October 2011 , there were 223 students in Le Landeron who came from another municipality, while 167 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Landeron Cities in Switzerland Municipalities of the canton of Neuchâtel Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Neuchâtel Populated places on Lake Biel