Trub

Trub is one of the largest municipalities of Switzerland (62 km²) in size, but not in population. It is located in the Emmental region of the canton of Bern in the administrative district of Emmental.

History

Trub is first mentioned in 1139 as ''Truoba''. Around 1258 it was mentioned as ''Trouba''.

Much of the early history of Trub is tied to the Benedictine Trub Abbey, which ruled over much of the modern municipality. The inhabitants of the village were ruled from the Abbey and were partly under ecclesiastical law, though the high court was under the secular Kyburgs. In 1408 Bern acquired the remaining Kyburg lands including the high court rights in Trub. During the early 15th century the population of the village dropped and many of the outlying farms were abandoned. As the population recovered in the second half of that century, many alpine meadows and small settlements were once opened up.

In 1528, Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and secularized all monasteries, including Trub. The land and lower courts in Trub came under Bernese control. The monastery church has always been the village church. It was converted into a Protestant church and the patronage rights passed to Bern. The original church was probably a Romanesque building. It was replaced with the current building in 1641-45, though some of the walls come from the earlier building.

Following the Protestant Reformation, a number of Anabaptists settled in Trub, which caused problems with the government in Bern. In 1532, the village was ordered to drive out all its Anabaptists, though many remained. Over the following centuries, until 1742 when it was finally no longer illegal, Anabaptist hunters would occasionally visit Trub to attempt to capture them. Several homes in the community, including the house at Hintere Hütte nr. 239, had special hidden rooms that the Anabaptists could hide in to avoid the hunters.

Following the 1798 French invasion, Trub became part of the Helvetic Republic district of Oberemmental. Five years later, following the collapse of the Republic and 1803 Act of Mediation, it was transferred to the Oberamt Signau.

In the 16th century dairy and cheese production became a major part of the local economy. Bernese patricians gradually bought up all the high alpine meadows, which they then leased back to the local dairy farmers. The valley floors were used to raise hay for the cattle when they were brought back down to spend winters on the valley floor. As the population grew and agriculture became more regulated and less labor-intensive, many residents were forced to emigrate beginning in the 18th century. Despite emigration, many residents lived in poverty and in 1810 a hospital for the poor opened in Trub. So many citizens emigrated that today 1 in 147 Swiss can trace their roots back to Trub. The construction of various valley roads between 1832 and 1860 as well as the construction of a train station of the Bern-Lucerne Railroad in Trubschachen in 1875 helped open up the village to industry. The economy shifted from agriculture to processing wood, building automotive parts, transporting goods and the services industry. In 2010 the municipality had two school houses in Trub and Fankhaus.

Geography

Trub has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 40.5% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 56.0% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 2.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.3% is unproductive land.Swiss Federal Statistical Office-Land Use Statistics
2009 data accessed 25 March 2010

During the same year, housing and buildings made up 1.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.1%. A total of 53.3% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 2.5% is used for growing crops and 24.9% is pasturage and 13.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

The large, mostly rural municipality is located on the southern slopes of the Napf mountain and includes both banks of the Ilfis river. It consists of the village of Trub, the neighborhoods of Brandösch, Fankhaus, Twären and Gummen, the business development of Kröschenbrunnen as well as scattered farm houses and alpine meadows.

On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Signau, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Emmental.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz
accessed 4 April 2011

Coat of arms

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is ''Azure a Tau Cross couped Or.''

Demographics

Today, Trub has just under 1,370 inhabitants (2012), but as a result of centuries of emigration from the Emmental region, over 50,000 people are registered as citizens of the Trub Bürgergemeinde.Trub municipal website
accessed 6 August 2014 Under Swiss law it includes all individuals who are citizens of the Bürgergemeinde, usually by having inherited the Bürgerrecht (citizenship), regardless of where they were born or where they may currently live. Instead of the place of birth, Swiss legal documents, e.g. passports, contain the Bürgerort (place of citizenship). About 1 in 134 Swiss citizens trace their ancestry back to this community, one of them being the 2002 Nobel Chemistry laureate, Kurt Wüthrich. The Fankhauser farm house in Trub dates back to 1601 and is the origin of the Fankhauser and Funkhouser families, which have since migrated to Virginia, United States as well as the Frankhouser family in Pennsylvania, United States.

Some of the Amish of the United States emigrated from the Trub region.

Trub has a population () of . , 1.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Between the last 2 years (2010-2012) the population changed at a rate of -2.7%. Migration accounted for -0.5%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.3%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office
accessed 6 August 2014

Most of the population () speaks German (1,499 or 99.5%) as their first language, Swedish and Serbo-Croatian both have 2 native speakers. There is 1 person who speaks French.

, the population was 52.2% male and 47.8% female. The population was made up of 717 Swiss men (51.4% of the population) and 12 (0.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 654 Swiss women (46.8%) and 13 (0.9%) non-Swiss women.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern
accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 935 or about 62.1% were born in Trub and lived there in 2000. There were 391 or 26.0% who were born in the same canton, while 106 or 7.0% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 27 or 1.8% were born outside of Switzerland.

, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 24.1% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 57.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 18.8%.

, there were 674 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 734 married individuals, 75 widows or widowers and 23 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000
accessed 2 February 2011

, there were 103 households that consist of only one person and 94 households with five or more people. , a total of 473 apartments (80.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 96 apartments (16.3%) were seasonally occupied and 21 apartments (3.6%) 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 0.2%. In 2012, single family homes made up 23.6% of the total housing in the municipality.

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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