Lyss

the municipality in Switzerland

Lyss is a municipality in the Seeland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2011, the former municipality of Busswil bei Büren was merged with Lyss.

Lyss is first mentioned in 1009 as Lissa. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 6.4% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 14.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 9.6%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 2.5% of the area while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 3.1%. Out of the forested land, all of the forested land area is covered with heavy forests. Of the agricultural land, 21.5% is used for growing crops and 7.2% is pastures, while 1.5% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water.

Lyss has a population of as of 2010, 16.0% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000–2010) the population has changed at a rate of 9.4%. Migration accounted for 7.9%, while births and deaths accounted for 1.7%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (9,072 or 85.1%) as their first language, Italian is the second most common (356 or 3.3%) and Spanish is the third (271 or 2.5%). There are 196 people who speak French and 6 people who speak Romansh. Of the population in the municipality, 2,676 or about 25.1% were born in Lyss and lived there in 2000. There were 4,146 or 38.9% who were born in the same canton, while 1,642 or 15.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 1,865 or 17.5% were born outside of Switzerland. as of 2000, there were 5,367 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.3 persons per household. as of 2009, the construction rate of new housing units was 13.6 new units per 1000 residents. The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2010, was 1.44%.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 28.51% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (23.05%), the FDP (20.5%) and the EVP Party (9.24%). In the federal election, a total of 3,135 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 40.5%. Lyss is governed by the Gemeinderat, an executive branch with 5 members, one of them elected mayor (Gemeindepräsident). The parliament has 47 members and is called Grosser Gemeinderat. The last elections were held in 2009 with the next elections scheduled to be in 2013. The 47 members of the legislative municipal council belong to 8 different political parties, the strongest being the FDP with 11 seats followed by the SVP with 10 and the SPS with 9 seats. The executive municipal council is made up of five members of three different political parties. The FDP and the SPS hold two seats each, the SVP holds one seat. The mayor Andreas Hegg is a member of the FDP.

as of 2010, Lyss had an unemployment rate of 2.5%. as of 2008, there were 54 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 20 businesses involved in this sector. 3,194 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 153 businesses in this sector. 3,761 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 505 businesses in this sector. In 2000, there were 4,242 workers who commuted into the municipality and 3,312 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 1.3 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. Of the working population, 21.1% used public transportation to get to work, and 48.7% used a private car. During the 2018–19 school year, there were a total of 1,640 students attending classes in Lyss. There were 269 kindergarten students in the municipality. Of the kindergarten students, 21.2% were permanent or temporary residents of Switzerland (not citizens) and 28.6% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The municipality had 857 primary students of which, 23.1% were not citizens and 28.8% have a different mother language. During the same year, there were 419lower secondary students of which 21.0% were not citizens and 19.1% have a different mother language than the classroom language. The remaining 95 attended special classes. as of 2000, there were 166 students in Lyss who came from another municipality, while 251 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

The municipality has three railway stations: , , and Between them there is regular service to , , , , and .