District de Laufon

Geschichte

Laufen District or Laufental District is one of the five districts of the largely German-speaking canton of Basel-Country, Switzerland. Its capital is the town of 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 1980, 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.GeographyLaufen district has an area, of 89.56km2. Of this area, 32.47km2 or 36.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 46.75km2 or 52.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 9.43km2 or 10.5% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.62km2 or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes and 0.25km2 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.