Kiesen
Castle gravels
Gravels is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.
Geography
Gravels located on 547 m above sea level. M., 8 km north- northwest of the city of Thun (air line). The village extends on both sides of Chise ( gravel ) on the flood plain on the eastern edge of the broad Aare valley.
The area of 4.7 km ² large municipality area includes a portion of the Aareniederung between Bern and Thun. The western and southwestern border runs along the River Aare, which is accompanied here by a forest belt. The municipality's ground lead just 1 km away from each other the Chise and Rotache into the Aare. From the Aare River, the municipality spell extends eastward across the wide plain of the Aare valley down to the adjacent hills. On the Deiberg is 593 m above sea level. M. reached the highest elevation of gravels. In the extreme south-east the area extends over the vast Chisenwald ( 586 m above sea level. M. ) to the edge of the valley of the Ägelmooses. From the municipality surface 1997 17 % came from settlements, 28 % of forest and woody plants, 52 % in agriculture and somewhat less than 3% was unproductive land.
To gravels include the settlement of Aarhus ( 540 m above sea level. M. ) on the Aare bridge as well as various groups of farms and individual farms. Neighboring communities of gravels are Wichtrach, Oppligen, Heimberg, Uttigen and Jaberg.
History
The first written mention of the village was carried out in 1236 under the name Chisun. Later, the names Chison (1250 ), Kishon ( 1253 ), Kyson ( 1305) and Kisen ( 1313 ) published. The name came originally from a water name. Chise has the meaning of the Gritty, the Leading gravel.
Since the Middle Ages gravels formed its own government, over in the 13th century, the monastery of Interlaken, from the early 14th century occupied various Bernese Burger families advocacies. The high jurisdiction lay with the district court Konolfingen. After the collapse of the Ancien Régime (1798 ) gravels belonged during the Helvetic Republic to the district Steffi castle and from 1803 to Oberamt Konolfingen, which was given the status of an office district with the new cantonal constitution of 1831.
Early gravels formed a transportation hub at the intersection of roads from Bern to Thun and the Emmental over the river Aare to the Schwarzenburgerland. After the Aare in the area of gravel had been corrected and straightened in 1826, the old Aarefähre in 1839 replaced by a bridge.
Population
With 864 inhabitants ( 31 December 2012) gravels is one of the smaller communities of the Canton of Bern. Of the residents 95.4 % are German, 1.2 % and 0.9 % speak Serbo-Croatian albanischsprachig (as of 2000). The population of gravel amounted in 1850 to 437 residents in 1900 to 433 inhabitants. During the 20th century the population grew steadily. 1980, counted 627 inhabitants.
Policy
The voting shares of the parties at the national elections of 2011 were: SVP 27.9%, 21.2% BDP, SP 12.9%, glp 6.8%, FDP 6.6%, 6.4% EDU, GPS 5.9 %, EPP 4.8%, CVP 2.5%, 1.4% PPS.
Economy
Gravels was until the second half of the 20th century, mainly coined by agriculture village. Even today, the farming, fruit growing and dairy farming and livestock have an important place in the economic structure of the population. Many other jobs are in the local retail industry and the services available. In gravels now a gravel pit, a toy factory, a furniture factory and enterprises in construction, computer science, food processing and wine industry are represented. In recent decades, the village has developed into a residential community. Many workers are therefore commuters who work mainly in the larger towns in the Aare Valley, around Thun and in the agglomeration of Bern.
Traffic
The community is a very good transport developed. It lies on the old main road from Bern to Thun. The nearest links to the motorway A6 ( Bern- Thun), which was opened in 1971 and runs through the municipality, located 2 km from the center. The railway line from Bern to Thun was put into operation on 1 July 1859, a railway station in gravels. On September 23, 1941, a serious railway accident occurred.
Attractions
On the hill east of the village stands the so-called Castle gravels, a country house, which was built in 1669 on the site of a medieval castle. The building was remodeled and expanded in 1794. 1815 was opened under Rudolf Emanuel Effinger on the castle estate, the cooperative cheese factory, which is located in the National Dairy Museum since 1974. Gravels does not have its own church, it belongs to the parish Wichtrach.