Huttwil is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the Swiss canton of Bern.

When the Zähringen family died out in 1218 the Counts of Kyburg acquired the growing town and surrounding lands.

Though the town was rebuilt and the Kyburgs remained in power Huttwil came increasingly under the Bernese sphere of influence.

[3] In 1528 Bern adopted the new faith of the Protestant Reformation and Huttwil converted along with the rest of the Bernese lands.

On 23 April 1653, representatives of the people of the countryside of Lucerne, Bern, Basel, and Solothurn met at Sumiswald and concluded an alliance to help each other to achieve their goals.

A week later, they met again at Huttwil, where they renewed that alliance and elected Niklaus Leuenberger from Rüderswil in the Emmental as their leader.

The treaty clearly established the league as a separate political entity that considered itself equal to and independent from the cities.

Legally, the peasants justified their assemblies and their union by the rights of old and in particular the Stanser Verkommnis of 1481, one of the important coalition treaties of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

[5] Though the Huttwil League was initially successful and forced Bern and Lucerne to sign peace treaties and grant concessions, on 3 June 1653 they were decisively defeated in the Battle of Wohlenschwil.

Niklaus Leuenberger was beheaded and quartered at Bern on September 6, 1653; his head was nailed at the gallows together with one of the four copies of the Bundesbrief of the Huttwil League.

While agriculture remained important, it became a regional market town and other industries began to develop.

Even the reforms of the 1798 French invasion and the Helvetic Republic failed to address the old power structure in the town.

[3] Throughout the 19th century a number of factories and small shops opened in the town, including canvas weaving, spinning wool, horsehair spinning, knitting mills, tanneries, sawmills and furniture manufacturing.

The entire town was rebuilt according to plans from Bern's city architect, Johann Daniel Osterrieth.

He planned a town center with three main roads around a central plaza with fountains.

The streets were lined with half-timbered Country-Biedermeier houses which reflected the growing prosperity of the town.

[3] An attempt to build a railway from Bern through Huttwil and the lower Emmental to Lucerne in 1871 failed.

The railway connected Huttwil to the rest of the country and allowed industry to grow in the town.

[3] Due to Huttwil being a regional center a secondary school opened in the town in 1873.

Of rest of the municipality 2.35 km2 (0.91 sq mi) or 13.6% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.01 km2 (2.5 acres) or 0.1% is either rivers or lakes.

[8] It is situated in the lower Emmental on the border with the Canton of Lucerne between Eriswil, Wyssachen, Dürrenroth and Walterswil.

[9] The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Azure two Keys Argent in Saltire and in chief a Mullet Or.

In the tertiary sector; 432 or 36.8% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 136 or 11.6% were in the movement and storage of goods, 61 or 5.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 48 or 4.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 62 or 5.3% were technical professionals or scientists, 100 or 8.5% were in education and 223 or 19.0% were in health care.

[24] The entire town of Huttwil is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

[26] From the 2000 census[update], 3,447 or 71.4% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 629 or 13.0% were Roman Catholic.

The wettest month was May during which time Huttwil received an average of 131 mm (5.2 in) of rain or snow.

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