Lauenen

Lauenen is first mentioned in 1296 as an der Lowinon. Lauenen is known as an area with substantial danger of landslides and avalanches, which is the origin of its name (German Lawine "landslide," from Latin labina "slide"). The oldest trace of a settlement in the area is a single Bronze Age artifact found at Feissenalp. Roman coins were found on the Wildhorn and near the village church. During much of the Middle Ages, Lauenen was part of the municipality and parish of Saanen. After years of negotiations, Lauenen became an independent parish in 1522 and finished building the parish church in 1524. When Bern accepted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation in 1528, Lauenen remained by the old faith. Finally, in 1556, the Reformation was introduced to this mountain village and they converted. Traditionally the villagers supported themselves by raising crops on the valley floor and raising cattle in seasonal alpine camps. In the 1800s the nearby community of Gstaad became an internationally known spa town. As tourists flocked to Gstaad, Lauenen became a destination as well and grew wealthy. Many of the richly decorated houses in the village were built with profits from the tourist industry. In the 1970s the tourist industry in Lauenen changed as visitors bought vacation chalets and villas. ==Geography==

Lauenen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 38.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.0% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 1.3% is settled (buildings or roads), or 1.0% is either rivers or lakes and or 34.6% is unproductive land. During the same year, housing and buildings made up 0.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.5%. A total of 20.1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 3.7% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 8.8% is pasturage and 29.3% is used for alpine pastures. Of the water in the municipality, 0.3% is in lakes and 0.8% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 5.4% is unproductive vegetation, 24.3% is too rocky for vegetation and 4.9% of the land is covered by glaciers. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Crane rising Argent beaked and membered Or on a Mount of 3 Coupeaux of the second all dimidiated impaled with Azure a Key Or. ==Demographics==

Lauenen has a population () of . , 11.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last year (2010-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 0.5%. Migration accounted for -0.6%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.0%. Most of the population () speaks German (742 or 93.5%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (23 or 2.9%) and French is the third (13 or 1.6%). Of the population in the municipality, 500 or about 63.0% were born in Lauenen and lived there in 2000. There were 170 or 21.4% who were born in the same canton, while 49 or 6.2% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 70 or 8.8% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 90 households that consist of only one person and 37 households with five or more people. , a total of 277 apartments (53.2% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 197 apartments (37.8%) were seasonally occupied and 47 apartments (9.0%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 23.7 new units per 1000 residents. 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:800 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:200 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:40 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:570 text:"570" bar:1850 from:start till:696 text:"696" bar:1860 from:start till:649 text:"649" bar:1870 from:start till:667 text:"667" bar:1880 from:start till:621 text:"621" bar:1888 from:start till:601 text:"601" bar:1900 from:start till:527 text:"527" bar:1910 from:start till:611 text:"611" bar:1920 from:start till:675 text:"675" bar:1930 from:start till:631 text:"631" bar:1941 from:start till:632 text:"632" bar:1950 from:start till:607 text:"607" bar:1960 from:start till:595 text:"595" bar:1970 from:start till:602 text:"602" bar:1980 from:start till:683 text:"683" bar:1990 from:start till:749 text:"749" bar:2000 from:start till:794 text:"794" bar:2010 from:start till:792 text:"792" ==Heritage sites of national significance==

The former farm house and mill at Dorf 247 is listed as a 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 65.8% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (9.9%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (7.9%) and the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) (4.3%). In the federal election, a total of 350 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 57.1%. ==Economy==

, Lauenen had an unemployment rate of 1.37%. , there were a total of 346 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 179 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 59 businesses involved in this sector. 69 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 13 businesses in this sector. 98 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 18 businesses in this sector. , there were 45 workers who commuted into the municipality and 158 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 3.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 259 workers (85.2% of the 304 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Lauenen. Of the working population, 9.6% used public transportation to get to work, and 52.8% used a private car. 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 301 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 71 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 7 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The greatest number of workers, 84, made between 50,000 and 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Lauenen was 120,455 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 0.5% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government. ==Religion==

From the , 647 or 81.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 47 or 5.9% were Roman Catholic. Of the rest of the population, there were 49 individuals (or about 6.17% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 19 (or about 2.39% of the population) who were Muslim. There was 1 person who was Buddhist. 22 (or about 2.77% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 9 individuals (or about 1.13% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Lauenen about 49% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 11.1% have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). During the 2011–12 school year, there were a total of 64 students attending classes in Lauenen. There was one kindergarten class with a total of 11 students in the municipality. The municipality had 2 primary classes and 42 students. Of the primary students, 4.8% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 2.4% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there was one lower secondary class with a total of 11 students. , there were a total of 101 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 100 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while one student came from another municipality. During the same year, 18 residents attended schools outside the municipality. == Famous people ==

• Gottfried Strasser (1854–1912), minister a poet (born in Lauenen) • Ernst Friedrich Langhans (1829–1880) worked as reformed minister in Lauenen from 1855 to 1858 • Anna von Wattenwyl (1841-1927), religious worker and officer of The Salvation Army ==References==