Studen, Bern

Studen is first mentioned in 1257 as Studon. Studen During the Middle Ages, the village of Studen and many surrounding villages were owned by the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau. In 1398 the entire Inselgau, including Studen, was acquired by the city of Bern and incorporated into the bailiwick of Nidau and the parish of Bürglen. Throughout its history, the village and its surrounding fields were occasionally damaged or destroyed when the Aare river flooded. The Jura water correction projects of 1868 to 1891 rerouted the Aare, prevented flooding and opened up additional farm land. However, as the town grew and industrialized, agriculture became less important and today less than 3% of jobs in the municipality are in farming. Beginning in the 1950s the nearby city of Biel grew into an industrial center and converted Studen into an industrial town. Despite the growth of industry, Studen was first connected to the Swiss Federal Railways network in 1999. As the population grew, new infrastructure was built including a primary school in 1968 and secondary schools in 1973 and 1983 and a parish church. Even with the new development the Petinesca and old Aare river course areas have remained undeveloped. ==Geography==

Studen has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 38.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 18.0% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 41.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes. During the same year, industrial buildings made up 10.3% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 18.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 4.8% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.8%. A total of 16.5% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 29.8% is used for growing crops and 5.1% is pasturage, while 3.7% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. ==Coat of arms==

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Or a Fir Tree issuant from a Willow Vert trunked and eradicated Gules. ==Demographics==

Studen has a population () of . , 12.8% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 0.5%. Migration accounted for 0.5%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%. Most of the population () speaks German (2,140 or 89.7%) as their first language, French is the second most common (85 or 3.6%) and Italian is the third (36 or 1.5%). There are 2 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality, 428 or about 17.9% were born in Studen and lived there in 2000. There were 1,185 or 49.6% who were born in the same canton, while 370 or 15.5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 322 or 13.5% were born outside of Switzerland. , there were 392 households that consist of only one person and 60 households with five or more people. , a total of 1,004 apartments (92.8% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 49 apartments (4.5%) were seasonally occupied and 29 apartments (2.7%) were empty. , the construction rate of new housing units was 20.2 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:35 bottom:20 right:35 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:2900 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:600 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:120 start:0 PlotData= color:yellowgreen width: 35 mark:(line,white) align:center bar:1764 from:start till:85 text:"85" bar:1850 from:start till:210 text:"210" bar:1860 from:start till:212 text:"212" bar:1870 from:start till:268 text:"268" bar:1880 from:start till:289 text:"289" bar:1888 from:start till:324 text:"324" bar:1900 from:start till:373 text:"373" bar:1910 from:start till:479 text:"479" bar:1920 from:start till:534 text:"534" bar:1930 from:start till:575 text:"575" bar:1941 from:start till:584 text:"584" bar:1950 from:start till:688 text:"688" bar:1960 from:start till:811 text:"811" bar:1970 from:start till:1312 text:"1,312" bar:1980 from:start till:2026 text:"2,026" bar:1990 from:start till:2345 text:"2,345" bar:2000 from:start till:2387 text:"2,387" bar:2010 from:start till:2801 text:"2,801" ==Heritage sites of national significance==

The Roman era vicus and temple complex at Petinesca 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 37.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (19.3%), the Social Democratic Party (SP) (14%) and the FDP.The Liberals (8.3%). In the federal election, a total of 857 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 42.3%. ==Economy==

, Studen had an unemployment rate of 2.44%. , there were a total of 1,439 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 32 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 498 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 41 businesses in this sector. 909 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 85 businesses in this sector. , there were 798 workers who commuted into the municipality and 1,069 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.3 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 334 workers (29.5% of the 1,132 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Studen. Of the working population, 19.7% used public transportation to get to work, and 56% 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 1,286 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 469 made over 75,000 CHF per year. There were 15 people who made between 15,000 and 20,000 per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Studen was 110,996 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF. In 2011 a total of 5.0% of the population received direct financial assistance from the government. ==Religion==

From the , 1,563 or 65.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 366 or 15.3% were Roman Catholic. Of the rest of the population, there were 35 members of an Orthodox church (or about 1.47% of the population), and there were 63 individuals (or about 2.64% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There were 60 (or about 2.51% of the population) who were Islamic. There were 5 individuals who were Buddhist, 12 individuals who were Hindu and 2 individuals who belonged to another church. 195 (or about 8.17% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 86 individuals (or about 3.60% of the population) did not answer the question. ==Education==

In Studen about 60.9% of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 14.5% have completed additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). During the 2011-12 school year, there were a total of 383 students attending classes in Studen. There were 3 kindergarten classes with a total of 49 students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 10.2% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 30.6% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 10 primary classes and 174 students. Of the primary students, 17.2% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 25.9% have a different mother language than the classroom language. During the same year, there were 10 lower secondary classes with a total of 160 students. There were 14.4% who were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 16.3% have a different mother language than the classroom language. , there were a total of 353 students attending any school in the municipality. Of those, 264 both lived and attended school in the municipality, while 89 students came from another municipality. During the same year, 72 residents attended schools outside the municipality. ==References==