Ederswiler

Ederswiler is a municipality in the district of Delémont in the canton of Jura in Switzerland. It is the only German-speaking municipality in the canton, where all others are French-speaking. Ederswiler is first mentioned in 1323 as Ernswilre. The village was part of the parish of Roggenburg, which fell under the control of the Bishop of Basel. Between 1389 and 1454, the parish was handed over as a fiefdom to the Count of Thierstein. Between 1793 and 1815, Ederswiler was part of France and was initially in the département of Mont-Terrible, but was merged with the département of Haut-Rhin in 1800. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna established that the municipality would become part of the canton of Bern. In the 1974 Plebiscite of Jura, Ederswiler objected to the creation of the French-speaking canton of Jura. However, the community had no border with the district of Laufen, so unlike all other border communities, it was not able to decide for itself which canton it would belong to. On 1 January 1979, Ederswiler was handed over from Bern to the new canton of Jura. For a long time, it was debated that Ederswiler should be returned to the canton of Bern, while the municipality of Vellerat, which had refused to join Jura for similar reasons, would finally become part of that canton. In 1990, when the population of Laufen voted to transfer to the canton of Basel-Country, Ederswiler was left with no common border with the canton of Bern. Since then, there has been no new discussion regarding Ederswiler switching cantons. Ederswiler has an area of . Of this area, or 55.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 41.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 4.2% is settled (buildings or roads). Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 2.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.6%. Out of the forested land, 33.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 8.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 10.3% is used for growing crops and 21.8% is pastures and 22.