Wichtrach


Wichtrach is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

History

Wichtrach was created on 1 January 2004 by uniting the independent municipalities of Niederwichtrach and Oberwichtrach. The parish church of Oberwichtrach was first mentioned in 1180. The two Wichtrach villages were first mentioned in 1180 as Wichtracho.

Geography

Wichtrach has an area of. As of 2012, a total of or 63.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 22.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 13.1% is settled, or 0.9% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 6.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.4%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 49.9% is used for growing crops and 12.1% is pastures, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
On 1 January 2004 the former municipalities of Niederwichtrach and Oberwichtrach merged into the municipality of Wichtrach.
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Konolfingen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.

Demographics

Wichtrach has a population of., 5.4% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 0%. Migration accounted for -0.6%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.5%.
Most of the population speaks German as their first language, French is the second most common and Italian is the third.
, the population was 50.2% male and 49.8% female. The population was made up of 1,897 Swiss men and 120 non-Swiss men. There were 1,903 Swiss women and 99 non-Swiss women.
, children and teenagers make up 21.4% of the population, while adults make up 63.3% and seniors make up 15.3%.
, there were 488 households that consist of only one person and 76 households with five or more people., the construction rate of new housing units was 0.2 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality,, was 2.78%.

Historic Population

The historical population is given in the following chart:

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bar:1850 from: 0 till:706 text:"706" color:NI
bar:1860 from: 0 till:675 text:"675" color:NI
bar:1870 from: 0 till:685 text:"685" color:NI
bar:1880 from: 0 till:622 text:"622" color:NI
bar:1890 from: 0 till:642 text:"642" color:NI
bar:1900 from: 0 till:720 text:"720" color:NI
bar:1910 from: 0 till:732 text:"732" color:NI
bar:1920 from: 0 till:807 text:"807" color:NI
bar:1930 from: 0 till:761 text:"761" color:NI
bar:1940 from: 0 till:745 text:"745" color:NI
bar:1950 from: 0 till:769 text:"769" color:NI
bar:1960 from: 0 till:710 text:"710" color:NI
bar:1970 from: 0 till:799 text:"799" color:NI
bar:1980 from: 0 till:858 text:"858" color:NI
bar:1990 from: 0 till:1188 text:"1,188" color:NI
bar:2000 from: 0 till:1322 text:"1,322" color:NI
bar:2010 from: 0 till:4046 text:"4,046" color:WI
bar:1850 from: 706 till:1268 text:"562" color:OB
bar:1860 from: 675 till:1213 text:"538" color:OB
bar:1870 from: 685 till:1185 text:"500" color:OB
bar:1880 from: 622 till:1182 text:"560" color:OB
bar:1890 from: 642 till:1157 text:"515" color:OB
bar:1900 from: 720 till:1370 text:"650" color:OB
bar:1910 from: 732 till:1500 text:"768" color:OB
bar:1920 from: 807 till:1611 text:"804" color:OB
bar:1930 from: 761 till:1555 text:"794" color:OB
bar:1940 from: 745 till:1607 text:"862" color:OB
bar:1950 from: 769 till:1664 text:"895" color:OB
bar:1960 from: 710 till:1632 text:"922" color:OB
bar:1970 from: 799 till:1921 text:"1,122" color:OB
bar:1980 from: 858 till:2522 text:"1,664" color:OB
bar:1990 from: 1188 till:3290 text:"2,102" color:OB
bar:2000 from: 1322 till:3699 text:"2,377" color:OB

Politics

In the 2015 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party which received 36.8% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party , the Social Democratic Party and the FDP.The Liberals. In the federal election, a total of 1,508 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.0%.

Economy

, Wichtrach had an unemployment rate of 1.32%., there were a total of 967 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 120 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 46 businesses involved in this sector. 291 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 41 businesses in this sector. 556 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 92 businesses in this sector.
there were a total of 760 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 78, all of which were in agriculture. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 270 of which 127 or were in manufacturing and 143 were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 412. In the tertiary sector; 111 or 26.9% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 15 or 3.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 42 or 10.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 5 or 1.2% were in the information industry, 38 or 9.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 71 or 17.2% were in education and 31 or 7.5% were in health care.
Of the working population, 27.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 50.2% used a private car.

Religion

In 2000 about 78.2% of the population belonged to a Protestant church, 9.4% were Roman Catholic and 5.6% had no religious affiliation.

Education

In Wichtrach about 62.5% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 18.9% have completed additional higher education.
The Canton of Bern school system provides one year of non-obligatory Kindergarten, 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.
During the 2010-11 school year, there were a total of 588 students attending classes in Wichtrach. There were 4 kindergarten classes with a total of 78 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 6.4% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 9.0% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 13 primary classes and 258 students. Of the primary students, 6.2% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 7.4% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 12 lower secondary classes with a total of 252 students. There were 3.2% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland and 4.0% have a different mother language than the classroom language.