Wangen an der Aare

Geschichte

Wangen an der Aare is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.This small town lies between Olten and Solothurn in rural surroundings on the Aare, a major river of the west-central lowland region of Switzerland, the Mittelland. An ancient wooden covered bridge crosses the Aare at this point. Wangen an der Aare was the administrative centre of the former district of the same name.Transport linksWangen is situated on the Biel/Bienne - Olten railway line and close to the A1 motorway.HistoryWang means an area at the foot of a slope; in this case the slope in question is almost certainly that of the nearby Jura mountain range. Wangen's coat of arms shows crossed St Peter's keys in blue on a white ground. The nobles who held the lordship of Wangen adopted this symbol which had been the badge of the Upper Aargau estates of the Abbey of Saint Peter in the Black Forest. The earliest document to be sealed with the crossed-keys symbol dates from the year 1380.