Lyss

Sister cities

• Monopoli

History

Lyss is first mentioned in 1009 as Lissa. The oldest traces of humans in Lyss include neolithic, Bronze Age and Hallstatt culture items scattered around the municipality. One of the best preserved items is a 6th-century BC Etruscan bronze statue. Roman era bricks have been found in Kirchhübeli along with early medieval and medieval tombs and the remains of a Carolingian church. A number of graves dating from the 7th Century were discovered at Sonnhalde-Kreuzhöhe. The Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Lyss is first mentioned in 1185-87 under the Counts of Neuchâtel-Aarberg. In 1367, Lyss, along with the rest of the land around Aarberg, was transferred to the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau. About ten years later, around 1377-79 it was transferred again to the City of Bern and became part of the Bernese bailiwick of Aarberg. While Bern owned the village of Lyss, a number of nobles and monasteries owned property, farms or rights in the village and surroundings. Until the Reformation, Lyss had two parish churches. The church of St. John the Evangelist was built in the 7th or 8th century. Around 1246 it was replaced with a new church, which was partially renovated in the 15th century. It became the center of an important deanery in the second half of the 14th century. After the Reformation it was the only church in Lyss until the current Reformed church was built in 1934–35. The other church St. Mary's Church at Kirchhübeli which was built on the foundations of a Carolingian church. In the 15th century the church began to fall into disrepair, and during the Reformation it was abandoned and demolished in 1533. For centuries, the meandering Aare and Lyssbach rivers flooded Lyss repeatedly. Over the centuries several dams…

Geography

Lyss has an area of . Of this area, or 30.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 33.8% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 35.6% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.4% is either rivers or lakes. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 14.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.5% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.1%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 21.5% is used for growing crops and 7.2% is pastures, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is an administrative and economic center for the surrounding region. Lyss is located at the mouth of the Lyssbach valley on the former right bank of the Aare river. It consists of the village of Lyss and village sections of Hardern and Eigenacker. Until 1876 it included the settlement of Werdthof, which is now part of Kappelen. Lyss lies on the eastern edge of a wide valley that extends southwest to Lake Murten. West of this valley lie Lake Neuchâtel and Lake Biel, and beyond that the Jura mountains. The valley is flat and was subject to flooding until 1878, when a major hydraulic engineering project changed the courses of the Aare and the Zihl and lowered the level of the three lakes by . In addition, water from the Aare, the Broye, the Zihl, and the Schüss was diverted into the Nidau-Büren Canal and the Hagneck Canal.

Most-observed species

• European roe deer

  Capreolus capreolus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  12,395
• red fox

  Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  8,199
• Annual Fleabane

  Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers. · Magnoliopsida
  4,653
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  4,512
• Eurasian beaver

  Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 · Mammalia
  4,416
• Meadow Brown

  Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758) · Insecta
  4,400
• European hare

  Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778 · Mammalia
  4,122
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,878

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2025-07-21
  4 km E of Frutigen, Switzerland
• M 3.5 — 2024-06-27
  1 km SSW of Todtmoos, Germany
• M 4.4 — 2023-03-22
  1 km NW of Pont-de-Roide, France
• M 3.9 — 2022-09-10
  1 km WSW of Zimmersheim, France
• M 2.7 — 2022-08-23
  4 km S of Turtmann, Switzerland
• M 4.1 — 2021-12-24
  2 km WSW of Blamont, France