Noflen
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Noflen 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 2018 the former municipalities of
Gelterfingen Gelterfingen is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Gelterfingen, Mühledorf and Noflen merged into the municipality of Kirc ...
, Mühledorf and Noflen merged into the municipality of Kirchdorf.


History

Noflen is first mentioned in 1250 as ''Novelon''. Very little is known about the early history of the village. By the 13th and 14th centuries a number of monasteries and patrician families owned rights or land in Noflen. The monasteries probably expanded their power in the village over the following centuries. However, in 1528
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 ...
adopted 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 monastery lands. Most likely this is when Noflen was acquired by Bern. The village has always been 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 Kirchdorf. Today the residents of the village mostly raise dairy cattle and farm.


Geography

Noflen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 81.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 13.6% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 5.9% is settled (buildings or roads).Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 3.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.2%. All of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 47.8% is used for growing crops and 26.8% is pasturage, while 6.6% is used for orchards or vine crops. The municipality is a scattered settlement with an upper and lower village on the Terrasse above 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), while part of the municipality is on the valley floor. Since 1948 the
hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
of Stoffelsrüti (in 1941 it had a population of 41) stopped being an
exclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...
of
Jaberg Jaberg is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Bern-Mittelland (administrative district), Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. History Jaberg is first ...
and joined Noflen. The municipalities of
Gelterfingen Gelterfingen is a former municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2018 the former municipalities of Gelterfingen, Mühledorf and Noflen merged into the municipality of Kirc ...
,
Gerzensee Gerzensee is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Bern-Mittelland (administrative district), Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern in Switzerland. The town is named a ...
, Kirchdorf, Mühledorf and Noflen are considering a merger on 1 January 2017 into the new municipality with an, , undetermined name.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 12 December 2013
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.
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 ''Argent a Rose Gules barbed and seeded proper between two Oxen orns of the second and a Mount Vert issuant from the base.''


Demographics

Noflen has a population () of . , 7.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population has changed at a rate of 11.7%. Migration accounted for 7.8%, while births and deaths accounted for 4.3%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 22 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 ...
(246 or 99.2%) as their first language with the rest speaking
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 ...
. , the population was 51.2% male and 48.8% female. The population was made up of 124 Swiss men (48.4% of the population) and 7 (2.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 116 Swiss women (45.3%) and 9 (3.5%) non-Swiss women.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012
Of the population in the municipality, 109 or about 44.0% were born in Noflen and lived there in 2000. There were 95 or 38.3% who were born in the same canton, while 32 or 12.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 5 or 2.0% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 25.2% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.5% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 14.3%. , there were 124 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 107 married individuals, 13 widows or widowers and 4 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 22 households that consist of only one person and 10 households with five or more people. , a total of 89 apartments (89.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 6 apartments (6.1%) were seasonally occupied and 4 apartments (4.0%) 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 35.0 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.4%. In 2011, single family homes made up 23.5% of the total housing in the municipality. The historical population is given in the following chart: Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9) id:darkgrey value:gray(0.8) ImageSize = width: auto height:200 barincrement:45 PlotArea = top:20 left:40 bottom:20 right:35 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:260 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:155 text:"155" bar:1850 from:start till:241 text:"241" bar:1860 from:start till:241 text:"241" bar:1870 from:start till:220 text:"220" bar:1880 from:start till:221 text:"221" bar:1888 from:start till:214 text:"214" bar:1900 from:start till:207 text:"207" bar:1910 from:start till:211 text:"211" bar:1920 from:start till:220 text:"220" bar:1930 from:start till:225 text:"225" bar:1941 from:start till:234 text:"234" bar:1950 from:start till:246 text:"246" bar:1960 from:start till:260 text:"260" bar:1970 from:start till:238 text:"238" bar:1980 from:start till:241 text:"241" bar:1990 from:start till:218 text:"218" bar:2000 from:start till:248 text:"248" bar:2010 from:start till:249 text:"249"


Economy

, Noflen had an unemployment rate of 0.77%. , there were a total of 124 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 88 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 24 businesses involved in this sector. 6 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 3 businesses in this sector. 30 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 10 businesses in this sector. There were 139 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 41.7% of the workforce. there were a total of 83
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 59, of which 58 were in agriculture and 1 was in forestry or lumber production. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 14 of which 5 or (35.7%) were in manufacturing and 9 (64.3%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 10. In the tertiary sector; 4 or 40.0% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 4 or 40.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 2 or 20.0% were in education. , there were 9 workers who commuted into the municipality and 84 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 9.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 55 workers (85.9% of the 64 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Noflen.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb
accessed 24 June 2010
Of the working population, 7.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 49.6% used a private car. In 2011 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Noflen 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 104 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 27 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 Noflen was 97,026 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 2.0% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.


Religion

From the , 219 or 88.3% 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 5 or 2.0% 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 5 individuals (or about 2.02% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 5 (or about 2.02% of the population) who were
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 ...
. 6 (or about 2.42% 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 8 individuals (or about 3.23% of the population) did not answer the question.


Education

In Noflen about 57.7% 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 19.2% 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 26 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 73.1% were Swiss men, 26.9% 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 2011-12 school year, there were a total of 20 students attending 2 kindergarten classes in Noflen.Schuljahr 2011/12 pdf document
accessed 9 May 2013
, there were a total of 26 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 26 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while 8 students from Noflen attended schools outside the municipality. During the same year, 8 residents attended schools outside the municipality.


References


External links

* {{Authority control Former municipalities of the canton of Bern