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

[3] Based on a few, individual finds the Ersigen area was settled during the Neolithic era.

[4] Between 1112 and 1418 there was a line of Ministerialis (unfree knights) from Ersigen, who served the Zähringen and Kyburg families.

In 1397 Thorburg gave his property, woods and the rights to low justice in Ersigen to the Thorberg Carthusian monastery.

In 1640 the village was involved in the construction and upkeep of the Emmen bridge as well as the Bern-Zürich road.

In 1836 Ersigen received the Thorbergerwald, the forests formerly owned by the Thorberg family, from the canton.

The village remained isolated until 1965, when the A1 motorway was built, which provided easy access to Ersigen.

During the first half of the 20th century, Bad Rudswil in Ersigen was a well-known medicinal thermal bath.

Later in the 20th century the baths closed, leaving most of the village employed in farming or light industry.

The oldest trace of a settlement in the area is a late-Bronze Age grave in Bühlen.

During the 13th and 14th centuries the Kyburg counts also owned land in the village, which they gave as a fief to their vassals.

In 1320, Albrecht of Thorberg, a Kyburg vassal, sold land in Niederösch, but retained the local forest and the low court.

The city merged the courts of Niederösch, Oberösch, Rumendingen and Bickigen and placed them under the bailiwick of Grasswil.

In 1423, Burgdorf acquired one half of the low court of Oberösch from Verena von Rohrmoos.

[8] It consists of the linear village of Ersigen (divided into Oberdorf and Unterdorf along the Ösch), the neighborhood of Rudswil and scattered farm houses.

[13] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (1,420 or 95.8%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (15 or 1.0%) and Albanian is the third (12 or 0.8%).

The historical population is given in the following chart:[4][16] The Gehöft house at Unterdorf 9, 10 is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

The entire village of Niederösch and the hamlet of Oberösch are part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

In the tertiary sector; 73 or 43.2% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 5 or 3.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 46 or 27.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 6 or 3.6% were in the information industry, 8 or 4.7% were technical professionals or scientists, 2 or 1.2% were in education and 10 or 5.9% were in health care.

[13] From the 2000 census[update], 102 or 6.9% were Roman Catholic, while 1,180 or 79.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.

This is followed by three years of obligatory lower Secondary school where the students are separated according to ability and aptitude.

Following the lower Secondary students may attend additional schooling or they may enter an apprenticeship.

[21] During the 2009-10 school year, there were a total of 170 students attending classes in Ersigen.