Lohnstorf is a former
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
Bern-Mittelland 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 ...
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
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 ...
. On 1 January 2020 the former municipalities of
Kirchenthurnen, Lohnstorf and
Mühlethurnen merged to form the municipality of
Thurnen.
History
Lohnstorf is first mentioned in 1148 as ''Lonestrof''. In 1279 it was mentioned as ''Lonstorf''.
[
The oldest trace of a settlement is in Brühl, where the ruins of 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 were found. By the 13th-14th century a number 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 ...
ese patrician families owned land and rights in the village and surrounding farms. One of the landowners was Anna Seiler, who established a hospital in Bern and in 1354 willed her landholdings to support the hospital. Today she is remembered with the Anna Seiler Fountain in Bern. In 1343, the von Blankenburg family donated Kirchenthurnen and the surrounding land, which probably included Lohnstorf, to Interlaken Monastery
Interlaken Monastery ( or ) was a convent of the Augustinian Canons Regular () from about 1133 until 1528 at Interlaken in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
History
The provost of the Mon ...
. In 1528 Bern accepted the new faith of 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 ...
and forcibly secularized the monastery and its lands, including Lohnstorf.
Throughout its history, Lohnstorf has been part of the large 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 Thurnen which is centered in Kirchenthurnen.
The Gürbe river correction projects of 1855-1911 helped drain the marshy valley floor and opened up farmland. Today, agriculture is the major industry in the municipality, though about two-thirds of the work force commute to jobs in surrounding towns and cities. Students from Lohnstorf travel to the school in Mühlethurnen.
Geography
Lohnstorf has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 92.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 1.7% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 6.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.1% is either rivers or lakes.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics]
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 3.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.3%. All of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 57.8% is used for growing crops and 29.4% is pasturage, while 2.8% is used for orchards or vine crops and 2.2% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.[
The municipality and village or Lohnstorf are located in the ]Gürbetal
Gürbetal (Gürbe Valley) in Switzerland lies between the towns of Bern and Thun, west of the Aare. It contains the municipality of Seftigen and those that surround it. The valley is named after the river Gürbe, which flows through it. The larges ...
(Gürbe valley) near Längenberg mountain.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Seftigen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.[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 ''Per bend Argent and Gules two Roundels in bend sinister counterchanged.''
Demographics
Lohnstorf has a population () of . , 2.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population has changed at a rate of -4.4%. Migration accounted for -4.8%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 4 April 2014
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 ...
(197 or 99.0%) as their first language with the rest speaking 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), ...
.[
, the population was 48.2% male and 51.8% female. The population was made up of 105 Swiss men (46.1% of the population) and 5 (2.2%) non-Swiss men. There were 116 Swiss women (50.9%) and 2 (0.9%) non-Swiss women.][Statistical office of the Canton of Bern]
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 77 or about 38.7% were born in Lohnstorf and lived there in 2000. There were 87 or 43.7% who were born in the same canton, while 24 or 12.1% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 6 or 3.0% 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 59.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.1%.][
, there were 82 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 104 married individuals, 10 widows or widowers and 3 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 23 households that consist of only one person and 7 households with five or more people. , a total of 69 apartments (88.5% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 5 apartments (6.4%) were seasonally occupied and 4 apartments (5.1%) were empty.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen]
accessed 28 January 2011 In 2011, single family homes made up 36.9% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 44.4% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Social Democratic Party (SP) (20.2%), the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (16%) and the Green Liberal Party (GLP) (4.6%). In the federal election, a total of 102 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 61.8%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election]
accessed 8 May 2012
Economy
, Lohnstorf had an unemployment rate of 0.09%. , there were a total of 82 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 35 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 11 businesses involved in this sector. 14 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 2 businesses in this sector. 33 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 6 businesses in this sector.[ There were 94 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 42.6% of the workforce.
there were a total of 64 ]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 28, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 26 of which 3 or (11.5%) were in manufacturing and 23 (88.5%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 10. In the tertiary sector; 2 or 20.0% were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 or 30.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 1 was in education.
, there were 19 workers who commuted into the municipality and 55 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 2.9 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 39 workers (67.2% of the 58 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Lohnstorf.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 20.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 38.3% used a private car.[
In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Lohnstorf making 150,000 CHF was 12.4%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 18.2%. For comparison, the average rate for the entire canton in the same year, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide average was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively.
In 2009 there were a total of 87 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 34 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There was one person who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Lohnstorf was 124,588 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF.
In 2011 a total of 0.4% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Bezüger/-innen von Sozialhilfeleistungen (Sozialhilfeempfänger/-innen), 2011]
accessed 18 June 2013
Religion
From the , 162 or 81.4% 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 ...
, while 7 or 3.5% 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 ...
. Of the rest of the population, there were 3 individuals (or about 1.51% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
. 23 (or about 11.56% 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 ...
or 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 3 individuals (or about 1.51% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Lohnstorf about 49.5% 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 28.6% 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 34 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 58.8% were Swiss men, 38.2% were Swiss women.][
, there was one student living in the municipality and attending some type of school, while 30 students from Lohnstorf attended schools outside the municipality.][
]
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Former municipalities of the canton of Bern