Belp (Highest Alemannic: Bäup) is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is close to Bern's Belp Airport. The municipality of Belpberg merged on 1 January 2012 into the municipality of Belp.Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz published by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 21 December 2011
History
Belp is first mentioned in 1263 as Belpo.
Scattered neolithic artifacts indicate that the Belp area was inhabited prehistorically. Bronze Age cemeteries and La Tène artifacts show that there were villages near modern Belp before the Roman invasion. After the collapse of the Roman Empire the area may have been uninhabited, but by the High Middle Ages there were villages and wooden castles here. Very little is known about Fahrhubel Castle, located about north-west of the Hunzigenbrücke (Hunzigen Bridge), and it was eventually completely demolished.
Hohberg Castle, on the northern slope of the Belpberg, was the ancestral seat of the Freiherren of Belp-Montenach. It was built around 1135 and today only ruins remain.Belp municipal website - History accessed 18 March 2014 During the 12th and 13th centuries, the family expanded their authority from Belp to include neighboring villages. In 1277 they created the Herrschaft of Belp to include all their estates and villages. Their expanding power brought them into conflict with the growing city-state of Bern and in 1298 Bern attacked Belp. At the Battle of Donnerbühl or Dornbühl in 1298 Bern destroyed the castle. Eight years later, in 1306, they forced the Freiherren of Belp-Montenach to become citizens of Bern and give up their independence. The Hölzernes Schloss or Wooden Castle was built in 1327 by the Freiherr in Belp village. By the late 14th century the male line of the Belp-Montenach family died out and Belp and the surrounding lands were acquired by a noble family in Bern. Over the following centuries, Belp passed through several noble families. In 1550-54 the von Luternau family built the Old Castle in the village across from the Wooden Castle. The Old Castle was the administrative seat of the Herrschaft during the 16th and 17th centuries.Swiss Castles.ch - Altes Schloss accessed 18 March 2014
By the 18th century, wealthy Bernese families began moving to Belp to escape the noise and crowding in the city. In 1735 Victor Fischer built Oberried Estate above the growing town. This estate was followed in 1740 by the Schlössli or Neues Schloss on Rubigenstrasse which was built for the historian Alexander Ludwig von Wattenwyl. Lindenegg Mansion was built in 1800.
The Wooden Castle was demolished in 1783. In 1721 the von Wattenwyl family acquired the Herrschaft, which they ruled until the 1798 French invasion and creation of the Helvetic Republic abolished the old aristocratic order. In 1810 the Canton of Bern bought the castle from Karl von Wattenwyl and used it as the center of the newly created Seftigen District.
The village church of St. Peter and Paul was first mentioned in 1228. It was probably established by the Freiherr of Belp. In 1334, Interlaken Monastery received the patronage rights over the church. In 1528, Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and Belp converted. After Bern forcefully secularized Interlaken Monastery, the patronage rights passed to Bern.
The Aare river correction of 1829-31 and the Gürbe river correction of 1855-60 helped open up new farmland and prevented devastating floods in the municipality. The river ferries were replaced with the Hunzigen or August Bridge in 1836. It was replaced with the larger Schützenfahr Bridge in 1883 and today is a covered pedestrian bridge. The Industrial Revolution reached Belp in 1844 when a cloth factory settled in the village. The factory operated until 1974. In 1928-29 the Belpmoos airport opened outside the town. It eventually grew into the Bern-Belp Regional Airport. Today, almost two-thirds of the population commutes to jobs outside the municipality and about two-thirds of the jobs in Belp are in the services sector.
Geography
Before the merger Belp had an area, , of . After the 2012 merger, Belp has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 57.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.9% is forested. The rest of the municipality is or 14.2% is settled (buildings or roads), or 2.1% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% 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 7.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 4.9%. A total of 24.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 39.1% is used for growing crops and 17.3% is pasturage, while 1.1% is used for orchards or vine crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.3% is in lakes and 1.8% is in rivers and streams.
The municipality is located at the mouth of the Gürbetal and on the left bank of the Aare river. It includes the village of Belp, the hamlets of Viehweide, Heitern and Hofmatt. In recent years, a number of new developments have been built including Eissel (1956–75), Montenach (1960s), Schafmatt (1970s), Hühnerhubel (1980). The parish includes Belp, Belpberg and Toffen. It is home to the Bern-Belp regional airport.
On 1 January 2012 the former municipality of Belpberg merged into the municipality of Belp.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz accessed 13 December 2014
On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Seftigen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.Nomenklaturen – Amtliches Gemeindeverzeichnis der Schweiz accessed 4 April 2011
Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Quartered Gules and Argent.Flags of the World.com accessed 18 March 2014
Demographics
Belp 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 3.2%. Migration accounted for 2.5%, while births and deaths accounted for 0.4%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office accessed 18 March 2014
Most of the population () speaks German (8,505 or 92.5%) as their first language, French is the second most common (107 or 1.2%) and Albanian is the third (107 or 1.2%). There are 103 people who speak Italian and 5 people who speak Romansh.
, the population was 48.8% male and 51.2% female. The population was made up of 4,376 Swiss men (42.8% of the population) and 608 (5.9%) non-Swiss men. There were 4,679 Swiss women (45.8%) and 558 (5.5%) non-Swiss women.Statistical office of the Canton of Bern accessed 4 January 2012 Of the population in the municipality, 2,500 or about 27.2% were born in Belp and lived there in 2000. There were 3,908 or 42.5% who were born in the same canton, while 1,434 or 15.6% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,052 or 11.4% were born outside of Switzerland.
, children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 20.3% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 17.5%.
, there were 3,754 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 4,468 married individuals, 492 widows or widowers and 479 individuals who are divorced.STAT-TAB Datenwürfel für Thema 40.3 - 2000 accessed 2 February 2011
, there were 1,484 households that consist of only one person and 211 households with five or more people.Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Haushaltsgrösse accessed 8 May 2013 , a total of 3,772 apartments (93.6% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 175 apartments (4.3%) were seasonally occupied and 84 apartments (2.1%) were empty.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB - Datenwürfel für Thema 09.2 - Gebäude und Wohnungen accessed 28 January 2011 , the construction rate of new housing units was 13 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 1.26%. In 2011, single family homes made up 48.4% of the total housing in the municipality.Statistischer Atlas der Schweiz - Anteil Einfamilienhäuser am gesamten Gebäudebestand, 2011 accessed 17 June 2013
The historical population is given in the following chart:Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Bevölkerungsentwicklung nach Region, 1850-2000 accessed 29 January 2011Swiss Federal Statistical Office - Ständige Wohnbevölkerung in Privathaushalten nach Gemeinde und Haushaltsgrösse accessed 12 August 2013
Heritage sites of national significance The Bider-Hangar at the airport and Oberried Estate 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 29.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Social Democratic Party (SP) (17.8%), the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP) (15.9%) and the FDP.The Liberals (7.9%). In the federal election, a total of 3,948 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 51.3%.Swiss Federal Statistical Office 2011 Election accessed 8 May 2012
Economy
Sky Work Airlines has its head office in Belp."Contact ." SkyWork Airlines. Retrieved on 19 February 2012. "SkyWork Airlines AG Aemmenmattstrasse 43 CH-3123 Bern-Belp""Legal notice ." Sky Work Airlines. Retrieved on 19 February 2010. "Sky Work LTD. & Sky Work Airlines LTD. Aemmennmattstrasse 43 CH-3123 Belp" The head office of Heliswiss is located on the grounds of Bern Airport in Belp,"Bern-Belp base ." Heliswiss. Retrieved on 25 February 2011. "Heliswiss is an international helicopter company based at Bern-Belp Airport." and SkyWorks previously had its head office on the airport grounds."Contact." SkyWork Airlines. Retrieved on 8 December 2010. "SkyWork Flughafen Bern-Belp Terminal Nord CH 3123 Bern-Belp.""Terms and conditions ." Sky Work Airlines. Retrieved on 8 December 2010. ""We", "our" "ourselves" and "us" means Sky Work Airlines Ltd., domiciled in Bern-Belp, Switzerland.""Ortsplan ." Town of Belp. Retrieved on 8 December 2010.
, Belp had an unemployment rate of 2.02%. , there were a total of 4,372 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 323 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 85 businesses involved in this sector. 1,147 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 93 businesses in this sector. 2,902 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 345 businesses in this sector. There were 5,081 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 44.0% of the workforce.
there were a total of 3,426 full-time equivalent jobs. The number of jobs in the primary sector was 113, of which 108 were in agriculture, 4 were in forestry or lumber production and 1 was in fishing or fisheries. The number of jobs in the secondary sector was 1,056 of which 686 or (65.0%) were in manufacturing and 340 (32.2%) were in construction. The number of jobs in the tertiary sector was 2,257. In the tertiary sector; 760 or 33.7% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 251 or 11.1% were in the movement and storage of goods, 134 or 5.9% were in a hotel or restaurant, 78 or 3.5% were in the information industry, 67 or 3.0% were the insurance or financial industry, 190 or 8.4% were technical professionals or scientists, 153 or 6.8% were in education and 403 or 17.9% were in health care.Swiss Federal Statistical Office STAT-TAB Betriebszählung: Arbeitsstätten nach Gemeinde und NOGA 2008 (Abschnitte), Sektoren 1-3 accessed 28 January 2011