Laufen District (Bezirk Laufen)
Prior to 1994, it was a district of the canton of Bern, one of the seven historical districts of the Bernese Jura. In 1979, three neighbouring French-speaking districts of Bern seceded to form the new canton of Jura. Laufen was left as an exclave of Bern, wedged between Jura, Solothurn, Basel-Country, and France. In 1989, the populace voted to secede from Bern and join Basel-Country. After a transitional period of preparation, this was effected in 1994.
It has a population of (as of ).
Laufen district has an area,, of 89.56 km2. Of this area, 32.47 km2 or 36.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 46.75 km2 or 52.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.43 km2 or 10.5% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.62 km2 or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes and 0.25 km2 or 0.3% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 1.2% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 4.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 3.2%. Out of the forested land, 49.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.4% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 17.1% is used for growing crops and 14.9% is pastures, while 1.6% is used for orchards or vine crops and 2.6% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
Map - Laufen District (Bezirk Laufen)
Map
Country - Switzerland
Flag of Switzerland |
Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas the Swiss population of approximately 8.7 million is concentrated mostly on the plateau, where the largest cities and economic centres are located, including Zürich, Geneva and Basel.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
CHF | Swiss franc | Fr | 2 |
CHE | WIR Bank | 2 | |
CHW | WIR Bank | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
FR | French language |
DE | German language |
IT | Italian language |
RM | Romansh language |