Ostermundigen

History

Ostermundigen is first mentioned in 1239 as Osturmundingun. In 1279 it was mentioned as Ostermundigen. Ostermundigen developed from three medieval villages (the upper, middle and lower villages) which formed a single community. The three villages were surrounded by fourteen fields that were held as fiefs by various nobles. In between the fields, a number of small hamlets developed including; Deisswil, Dennigkofen, Rörswil, Rothus and Wegmühle. Politically and religiously it was part of the municipality of Bolligen, however, the Holzgemeinde (forest cooperative) administered the limited common forest land. The villages of Ostermundigen formed a quarter of the parish of Bolligen, along with the quarters of Ittigen, Ferenberg and Bolligen. After the Protestant Reformation in 1528 entered the parish, the quarters became partially autonomous. Each quarter was now responsible to care for the poor and orphans and to provide education for the residents of that quarter. Eventually the Holzgemeinde became responsible for providing an education and caring for the poor. They built the first school house in 1746. By the early 19th century, this arrangement had created a complex and unwieldy municipal power structure with five different councils (Holzgemeinde, village, school, quarter and road repair and maintenance) all holding overlapping powers. This was in addition to the municipal and parish councils in Bolligen. In 1856, the citizens of Ostermundigen combined the Holzgemeinde, village council and quarter council into one. The road repair council and the quarter council merged in 1872. In 1945, the school district and the quarter-finally merged which finally gave the Ostermundigen quarter a unified administrative structure. However, the municipal organization was still…

Geography

Ostermundigen has an area of . Of this area, or 32.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 25.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 42.9% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 0.2% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.2% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 25.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.1%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.0% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2.9%. Out of the forested land, 24.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 25.1% is used for growing crops and 6.2% is pastures. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Bern, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland.

Most-observed species

• Southern Damselfly

  Coenagrion mercuriale (Charpentier, 1840) · Insecta
  4,431
• Meadow Brown

  Maniola jurtina (Linnaeus, 1758) · Insecta
  3,403
• Common Toad

  Bufo bufo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Amphibia
  3,317
• Annual Fleabane

  Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers. · Magnoliopsida
  3,085
• European roe deer

  Capreolus capreolus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  2,749
• Yellow-legged hornet

  Vespa velutina Lepeletier, 1836 · Insecta
  2,598
• Eurasian beaver

  Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758 · Mammalia
  2,578
• red fox

  Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1758) · Mammalia
  2,245

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 4.2 — 2024-06-04
  2 km NNW of Unteriberg, 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