Saules () is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (Jura Bernois).
Geography
thumb|left|Saules village
Saules has an area of .<!--4.28 - 4.26 km2--> As of 2012, a total of or 43.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 52.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 3.7% is settled (buildings or roads) and or 0.2% is unproductive land.
During the same year, housing and buildings made up 2.6% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.2%. Out of the forested land, 46.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 2.6% is used for growing crops and 31.5% is pastures and 8.9% is used for alpine pastures.
Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent three Ears Gules in saltire and palewise.
Demographics
Saules has a population () of . , 0.7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2001-2011) the population has changed at a rate of 2%. Migration accounted for 0.7%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.3%.
Most of the population () speaks French (150 or 91.5%) as their first language, German is the second most common (13 or 7.9%) and Albanian is the third (1 or 0.6%). Of the population in the municipality, 75 or about 45.7% were born in Saules and lived there in 2000. There were 61 or 37.2% who were born in the same canton, while 17 or 10.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 9 or 5.5% were born outside of Switzerland.
, there were 19 households that consist of only one person and 7 households with five or more people. , a total of 64 apartments (71.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 21 apartments (23.6%) were seasonally occupied and 4 apartments (4.5%) were empty. The vacancy rate for the municipality, , was 2.17%. In 2011, single family homes made up 68.5% of the total housing in the municipality.
The historical population is given in the following chart:
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bar:1804 from:start till:106 text:"106"
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bar:1860 from:start till:158 text:"158"
bar:1870 from:start till:176 text:"176"
bar:1880 from:start till:212 text:"212"
bar:1888 from:start till:218 text:"218"
bar:1900 from:start till:212 text:"212"
bar:1910 from:start till:190 text:"190"
bar:1920 from:start till:183 text:"183"
bar:1930 from:start till:215 text:"215"
bar:1941 from:start till:189 text:"189"
bar:1950 from:start till:196 text:"196"
bar:1960 from:start till:202 text:"202"
bar:1970 from:start till:191 text:"191"
bar:1980 from:start till:147 text:"147"
bar:1990 from:start till:133 text:"133"
bar:2000 from:start till:164 text:"164"
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Politics
In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the Swiss People's Party (SVP) which received 59.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the Social Democratic Party (SP) (9%), the Green Party (6.3%) and the Evangelical People's Party (EVP) (6.2%). In the federal election, a total of 73 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 59.8%.
Economy
, Saules had an unemployment rate of 1.23%. , there were a total of 32 people employed in the municipality. Of these, there were 20 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 7 businesses involved in this sector. 7 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 3 businesses in this sector. 5 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 2 businesses in this sector.
, there were 4 workers who commuted into the municipality and 63 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 15.8 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. A total of 28 workers (87.5% of the 32 total workers in the municipality) both lived and worked in Saules.
Of the working population, 9.9% used public transportation to get to work, and 58.2% used a private car. For comparison, the rate for the entire canton in the same year, was 14.2% and 22.0%, while the nationwide rate was 12.3% and 21.1% respectively. In 2009 there were a total of 59 tax payers in the municipality. Of that total, 21 made over 75,000 CHF per year. The average income of the over 75,000 CHF group in Saules was 91,757 CHF, while the average across all of Switzerland was 130,478 CHF.
Religion
From the , 102 or 62.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 10 or 6.1% were Roman Catholic. Of the rest of the population, there were 34 individuals (or about 20.73% of the population) who belonged to another Christian church. There was 1 individual who was Islamic. 7 (or about 4.27% of the population) belonged to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 10 individuals (or about 6.10% of the population) did not answer the question.