Bellmund

Bellmund (Belmont) is a municipality in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Bellmund is first mentioned in 1107 as Bellus mons. In 1228 it was mentioned as Belmunt. The municipality was formerly known by its French name Belmont though that name is rarely used. The oldest traces of a settlement in the area are a few, scattered neolithic items found on the Jensberg hill. Later traces include Roman era iron ingots which were found in the Wilerholz and the remains of what may have been a Roman road to Sutz. A few early medieval graves were found in the modern village. During the High Middle Ages, Knebelburg Castle (also spelled Chnebelburg) was built on the Jensberg. By 1107 the royal family of Burgundy founded a Cluniac priory near the village. In 1127, the priory moved to St. Peter's Island in the nearby Lake Biel. The village was part of the Herrschaft of Nidau and came partly under Bernese control in 1388 and fully in 1393. The first village church was mentioned in 1228. It collapsed in 1509. When the Protestant Reformation came to Bellmund in 1528, the village accepted the new faith and became part of the parish of Nidau. It used to lie on the old highway between Bern, Aarberg and Nidau. In 1864 the new Bern-Lyss-Biel railroad and then the Bern-Lyss-Biel highway replaced the old highway and bypassed Bellmund. Because of this, the village remained generally isolated and agrarian. In the 1950s, Biel began to expand and Bellmund slowly became a commuter town of Biel. In 1980 the Stöckleren development was built to provide housing for the growing population. Bellmund has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 52.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 33.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 14.7% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes. The same year, housing and buildings made up 9.7% and transportation infrastructure made up 2.9%. while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 1.3%. All of the forested land area is covered with heavy forest.