Map - Eggiwil

Eggiwil is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

Eggiwil is first mentioned in 1323 as Eggenwile.

The village was probably settled in the 14th century. The Kyburg Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Eggiwil first appears around the same time. The villagers bought the land from the Freiherr von Schweinsberg in 1372 and later bought the right to hold court over themselves. While they were still part of the bailiwick and parish of Signau, on all local matters they were independent. In 1528 the city of Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and converted the surrounding area, including Eggiwil. In the following year, Bern brought the entire Signau area under their control. In the years following the Reformation in Bern, Anabaptists began to settle in Eggiwil. In 1630-32 Bern built a Swiss Reformed Church in the village to try to restrain the Anabaptists. In 1648, this church became the parish church of the Eggiwil parish.

The village is surrounded by a number of alpine meadows and much of the local economy depended on raising cattle in the meadows or harvesting timber from the surrounding forests. Deforestation from grazing and timber production caused a number of floods which damaged farm land and houses around the village and in the 19th century encouraged the villagers to reforest the surrounding mountains. Until the 1830 construction of a road to Schüpbach, the only way to reach the village was a narrow mountain path. Today, agriculture is still important, though a few machine shops, mills and sawmills provide additional jobs. Eggiwil lacks a convenient road or rail link to any major city and so very few residents commute to jobs elsewhere. Because the municipality is so spread out, there are eight primary school buildings scattered throughout its area.