Pohlern 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 administrative district of
Thun
Thun () is a List of towns in Switzerland, town and a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Canton of Bern, Bern in Switzerland. ...
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 ...
.
History
Pohlern is first mentioned in 1389 as ''in der Polleren''.
[
Until 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 ( ...
Pohlern was virtually uninhabited forest in 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 Strättligen. During the 14th century it was gradually settled under the rule of the Freiherr
(; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...
von Burgistein. By 1417 the ''Barfüsser'' (Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...
mendicant
A mendicant (from , "begging") is one who practices mendicancy, relying chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, Mendicant orders, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many i ...
) monastery in 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 ...
owned some land and rights in the village. In 1459 it was combined with Uebeschi to form the ''Herrschaft'' of Pohlern. In 1499 and further in 1516 the Bernese patrician May family acquired parts of the village. In 1528 Bern 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 suppressed all the monasteries, including the ''Barfüssers''. Bern took over Pohlern and dissolved the ''Herrschaft''. Pohlern became part of the court of Amsoldingen in the Thun District
Thun District is one of the 26 administrative districts in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. Its capital is the municipality of Thun.
On 1 January 2010, the district's administrative functions were transferred to the newly established and enlarge ...
, where it remained until the district was dissolved in 2009. Today most residents either work in agriculture or commute to jobs outside the municipality.[
For most of its history, the village 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 Thierachern
Thierachern is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Thierachern is first mentioned in 1250 as ''Tierachern''.
The area around Thierachern was occupied during the Neolithic era, the ...
. In 1922 it was assigned to the nearby parish of Blumenstein
Blumenstein is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the administrative district of Thun (administrative district), Thun, in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
History
Blumenstein is first mentioned in 1305 as ''Bluomenstein''. Tannenb ...
, with which it also shares a school house.[
]
Geography
Pohlern has an area of . As of the 2004 survey, a total of or 37.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 45.3% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 1.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.5% is either rivers or lakes and or 14.4% is unproductive land.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics]
2009 data accessed 27 August 2014
From the same survey, housing and buildings made up 0.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.0%. A total of 39.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 3.4% is used for growing crops and 13.7% is pasturage and 20.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 9.9% is unproductive vegetation and 4.4% is too rocky for vegetation.[
It lies on the northern side of the ]Stockhorn
The Stockhorn is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking the region of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland. It is located north of the town of Erlenbach im Simmental.
The Stockhorn is high and is accessible via cable car from Erlenbach. It ...
mountains in the lower end of the Stockental valley. Like most of the canton of Bern, it is German-speaking.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Thun, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Thun.[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 ''Argent a Fir Tree Vert trunked and eradicated Gules on a Mount of 3 Coupeaux Sable.''
Demographics
Pohlern has a population () of . , 5.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -1.5%. Migration accounted for -1.9%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.0%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office]
accessed 29 August 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 ...
(226 or 100.0%) 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 54.3% male and 45.7% female. The population was made up of 135 Swiss men (50.6% of the population) and 10 (3.7%) non-Swiss men. There were 118 Swiss women (44.2%) and 4 (1.5%) non-Swiss women.][Statistical office of the Canton of Bern]
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 71 or about 31.4% were born in Pohlern and lived there in 2000. There were 124 or 54.9% who were born in the same canton, while 14 or 6.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 3 or 1.3% were born outside of Switzerland.[
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.0% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 58.9% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17.1%.][
, there were 102 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 97 married individuals, 12 widows or widowers and 15 individuals who are divorced.][STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000]
accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 33 households that consist of only one person and 10 households with five or more people. , a total of 91 apartments (90.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 4 apartments (4.0%) were seasonally occupied and 6 apartments (5.9%) were empty.[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 3.3%. In 2012, single family homes made up 37.2% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
Economy
, Pohlern had an unemployment rate of 0.24%. , there were a total of 68 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 31 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 10 businesses involved in this sector. 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 ...
employs 11 people and there were 3 businesses in this sector. 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 ...
employs 26 people, with 9 businesses in this sector.[ There were 137 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 40.9% of the workforce.
there were a total of 46 ]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 22, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 8 of which 7 or (87.5%) were in manufacturing and 1 was in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 16. In the tertiary sector; 8 were in a hotel or restaurant, 3 were in education and 4 were in health care.
, there were 13 workers who commuted into the municipality and 99 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 7.6 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 38 workers (74.5% of the 51 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Pohlern.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Statweb]
accessed 24 June 2010 Of the working population, 5.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 61.3% used a private car.[
The local and cantonal tax rate in Pohlern is one of the lowest in the canton. In 2012 the average local and cantonal tax rate on a married resident, with two children, of Pohlern making 150,000 CHF was 12.2%, while an unmarried resident's rate was 18.2%. For comparison, the average rate for the entire canton in 2011, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide average was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively.
In 2010 there were a total of 114 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 21 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 2 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The greatest number of workers, 42, made between 50,000 and 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Pohlern was 111,657 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 131,244 CHF.
In 2011 a total of 1.2% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government.
]
Heritage sites of national significance
The farm house in Rohrmoos at Rohrmooshof 3 and the farm house Mättli at Mettli 23 are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.
Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 61.6% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (17.3%), another local party (6.0%) and the FDP.The Liberals
FDP.The Liberals (, , , ) is a liberal political party in Switzerland.
The party was formed on 1 January 2009, after two parties, the Free Democratic Party (FDP/PRD) and the smaller Liberal Party (LPS/PLS), united. In Vaud and Valais, the parti ...
(3.8%). In the federal election, a total of 96 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 46.4%.[Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election]
accessed 8 May 2012
Religion
From the , 197 or 87.2% 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 3 or 1.3% 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 7 individuals (or about 3.10% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. 10 (or about 4.42% 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 9 individuals (or about 3.98% of the population) did not answer the question.[
]
Education
In Pohlern about 53.5% 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 11.6% 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 16 who had completed some form of tertiary schooling listed in the census, 75.0% were Swiss men, 25.0% 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 ...
.[Datei der Gemeinde- und Schultabellen]
accessed 23 July 2014
, there were a total of 16 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 15 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while one student came from another municipality. During the same year, 12 residents attended schools outside the municipality.[
]
References
External links
Official Website of the municipality of Pohlern
in German;
Homepage of municipality
in German;
{{Authority control
Municipalities of the canton of Bern
Cultural property of national significance in the canton of Bern