Meienried 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

Meienried is first mentioned in 1255 as ''Meinrieth''. The village grew around a medieval ferry dock and

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

station, which was first mentioned in 1268. It was located on a small rise between the

Zihl 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 ...

and

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 ...

rivers. On the eastern or Zihl side was Underfar village with a boat landing and a ferry to

Safnern Safnern is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Biel/Bienne (administrative district), Biel/Bienne administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. History Safnern is first menti ...

. On the western or Aare side was Oberfar with ferries to

Dotzigen Dotzigen 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. History Dotzigen is first mentioned ...

and

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 ...

. The village was part of the Büren district in the lands of the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau. In 1255, the Counts gave Meienried to the

Gottstatt Monastery Gottstat Monastery is a former Premonstratensian monastery in the municipality of Orpund in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. Establishment It was established in 1255 by Count Rudolf I von Neuchâtel-Nidau. A previous attempt to establish a mon ...

, which they had recently founded. After the extinction of the Counts, between 1388 and 1393 the entire ''

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 Büren, including Meienried, went to

. 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 ...

of 1868-75 helped protect the village from flooding from the surrounding rivers. In 1970 the marshes around the village were drained, which opened up additional farmland. In 1934 the Meienried Nature Preserve was established to help protect the old Zihl water course and the Meienriedloch. In 2003 the Tümpel bei Alter Aare was designated as part of the

Federal Inventory of Amphibian Spawning Areas The ''Federal Inventory of Amphibian Spawning Areas'' is part of a 2001 Ordinance of the Swiss Federal Council implementing the Federal Law on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage. The inventory includes spawning areas of amphibians of nat ...

. This small village has its own town hall and school district, but most of the residents commute to jobs in Büren or even Bern.

Geography

Meienried has an area of . Of this area, or 71.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 16.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.0% is settled (buildings or roads), or 6.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 4.5% 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 1.5% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.5%. Out of the forested land, 13.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 56.1% is used for growing crops and 13.6% is pastures, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 4.5% is in lakes and 1.5% is in rivers and streams. The municipality is located at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of the

and

rivers. 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 ''Vert on a Chief Argent a Rose Gules barbed of the first and seeded Or.''

Demographics

Meienried has a population () of . , 1.9% 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 -14.3%. Migration accounted for -9.5%, while births and deaths accounted for -4.8%.
accessed 21-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 ...

(55 or 93.2%) 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 (3 or 5.1%) and

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

is the third (1 or 1.7%). , the population was 52.8% male and 47.2% female. The population was made up of 28 Swiss men (52.8% of the population), 24 Swiss women (45.3%) and 1 (1.9%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 21 or about 35.6% were born in Meienried and lived there in 2000. There were 18 or 30.5% who were born in the same canton, while 14 or 23.7% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 2 or 3.4% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 5.7% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 81.1% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 13.2%. , there were 29 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 24 married individuals, 3 widows or widowers and 3 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011 , there were 8 households that consist of only one person and 2 households with five or more people. , a total of 19 apartments (82.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 4 apartments (17.4%) were seasonally occupied.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen
accessed 28 January 2011 The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 8.33%. 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:110 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:20 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:4 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width:40 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:69 text:"69" bar:1850 from:start till:107 text:"107" bar:1860 from:start till:85 text:"85" bar:1870 from:start till:68 text:"68" bar:1880 from:start till:73 text:"73" bar:1888 from:start till:89 text:"89" bar:1900 from:start till:82 text:"82" bar:1910 from:start till:76 text:"76" bar:1920 from:start till:73 text:"73" bar:1930 from:start till:67 text:"67" bar:1941 from:start till:65 text:"65" bar:1950 from:start till:68 text:"68" bar:1960 from:start till:60 text:"60" bar:1970 from:start till:57 text:"57" bar:1980 from:start till:49 text:"49" bar:1990 from:start till:61 text:"61" bar:2000 from:start till:59 text:"59"

Sights

The entire Meienried area is designated as 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 ...

Economy

, Meienried had an unemployment rate of 2.93%. , there were a total of 22 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 13 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. No one was 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 ...

. 9 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 1 business in this sector. there were a total of 16

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. There were 8 jobs in agriculture and 8 jobs in the tertiary sector, in a hotel or restaurant.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3
accessed 28 January 2011 , there were 25 workers who commuted away from the municipality.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 13.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 63.9% used a private car.

Religion

From the , 3 or 5.1% 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 47 or 79.7% 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 ...

. 6 (or about 10.17% 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 3 individuals (or about 5.08% of the population) did not answer the question.

Education

In Meienried about 21 or (35.6%) 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 7 or (11.9%) 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 7 who completed tertiary schooling, 85.7% were Swiss men, 14.3% were Swiss women. During the 2010-11 school year, there were no students attending school in Meienried.Schuljahr 2010/11 pdf document
accessed 4 January 2012 , there were 12 students from Meienried who attended schools outside the municipality.

References

{{Authority control Municipalities of the canton of Bern