Murten

History

The oldest archaeological traces of a settlement in the perimeter are from the Mesolithic (8200-5500 BC). The Mesolithic finds are mostly small flint shards for use in weapons or tools. These flints were produced mostly in the swampy lowlands east of the city at Murten-Combette and Murten-Ober Prehl. While many of these flint objects are in museums, the exact discovery sites were not properly documented and have been lost or covered by later excavations. Several other sites were discovered during construction of the A1 motorway in 1976–95. These settlements are from the Neolithic (5500-2500 BC) and the Bronze Age (2300-800 BC). Murten Pré de la Blanc was used in the Neolithic and middle Bronze Age, while the sites Murten-Lowenberg, Murten-Ober Prehl and Chantemerle 1 are from the Late Bronze Age. The cemetery at Lowenberg was used for more than a millennium, from the middle Bronze Age to the La Tène period. The nearby necropolis holds a number of Hallstatt era graves. The remains of a large Roman villa from the end of 1st or early 2nd century BC and a piece of a Roman road have also been found. of Zähringen or Landri de Durnes, the Bishop of Lausanne in either 1159 or during the 1170s or 1180s next to the fortress. Murten was first mentioned as a city in 1238. After his death the German emperor Frederic II recognized Murten as a "Free Imperial Town". At that time the emperor himself lived in the south of Italy and a small town north of the Alps was not his concern. It did not last long – in 1255 Murten fell under the protection of Count Peter of Savoy. When Philip I of Savoy refused to give Murten to him, King Rudolph of Habsburg seized it as a royal estate. After Rudolf's death Amadeus V of Savoy, bought the city again in 1291, but lost it to King Albert I of Germany…

Geography

Murten has an area of . Before the mergers expanded the municipal borders, or 51.4% was used for agricultural purposes, while or 26.2% were forested. Of the rest of the land, or 21.6% were settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% were either rivers or lakes and or 0.2% was unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.6% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 9.4% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.1%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.2%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 40.4% is used for growing crops and 9.5% is pastures, while 1.4% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The small medieval town lies in the Swiss "Midlands" on the edge of the Great Marsh, on a gentle hill ( above sea level) and on the shore of Lake Murten. Numerous attractions from a significant past have been well preserved here, such as the castle, the ring wall, the street scene and the arcades. Lake Murten is a smaller lake located in between Lake Biel and the Lake Neuchâtel. Mont Vully stands on the western side of the Seeland's largest plain and resembles a pearl gently placed among the three lakes of Murten, Neuchâtel and Biel/Bienne. Already long ago, the Celtic and Helvetic tribes appreciated the region's temperate climate and the local countryside's particular charm. Today, the Vully vineyards take up a large part of the south face of Mont Vully. The over 100 hectares of vineyards are facing towards Lake Murten.

Most-observed species

• European roe deer

  Capreolus capreolus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  11,096
• red fox

  Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  6,555
• European hare

  Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778 · Mammalia
  5,911
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,104
• Eurasian beaver

  Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 · Mammalia
  4,833
• Meadow Brown

  Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758) · Insecta
  4,636
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  4,014
• Common Toad

  Bufo bufo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Amphibia
  4,011

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2025-07-21
  4 km E of Frutigen, Switzerland
• 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
• M 3.4 — 2020-06-23
  11 km ESE of Samoëns, France