In 1979, three neighbouring French-speaking districts of Bern seceded to form the new canton of Jura.

Laufen was left as an exclave of Bern, wedged between Jura, Solothurn, Basel-Country, and France.

In 1989, the populace voted to secede from Bern and join Basel-Country.

Laufen district has an area, as of 2009[update], of 89.56 square kilometers (34.58 sq mi).

[3] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (15,363 or 89.4%), with Italian language being second most common (513 or 3.0%) and Albanian being third (261 or 1.5%).

The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 67 and the non-Swiss population change was an increase of 77 people.

[3] The age distribution, as of 2010[update], in the Laufen district is; 1,227 children or 6.5% of the population are between 0 and 6 years old and 2,882 teenagers or 15.2% are between 7 and 19.

[6] The historical population is given in the following chart:[7] In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 29.42% of the vote.

In the federal election, a total of 6,170 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 48.2%.

[8] From the 2000 census[update], 10,857 or 63.2% were Roman Catholic, while 2,629 or 15.3% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church.