Ostermundigen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

Most of the buildings in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Old City of Bern were built from sandstone quarried in Ostermundigen.

In between the fields, a number of small hamlets developed including; Deisswil, Dennigkofen, Rörswil, Rothus and Wegmühle.

By the early 19th century, this arrangement had created a complex and unwieldy municipal power structure with five different councils (Holzgemeinde, village, school, quarter and road repair and maintenance) all holding overlapping powers.

In 1945, the school district and the quarter-finally merged which finally gave the Ostermundigen quarter a unified administrative structure.

[3] The village of Ostermundigen was a stop along the traditional trade route into the Bernese Oberland.

Beginning in the 16th century a number of Bernese patricians built country estates in Ostermundigen.

Some of the most notable included the Ostermundigengut, built in 1707, the country estate Rothus (basically late Gothic style begun in 1671) and the country estate of Rörswil (built, expanded and renovated from the 16th until the 19th century).

In 1871, for a world's first, a rack railway replaced the horse or mule teams that brought the stones from the quarry to the railroad station.

Around 1900, the demand for sandstone dwindled as brick and cement replaced stone in new construction.

Some of the largest employers were Zent AG (in operation 1898-1974), the paper and cardboard mill Deisswil (opened in 1876) and the Psychiatric Clinic of Waldau.

However, the largest factories were in neighboring municipalities and many residents commuted to jobs in those surrounding communities.

The constant financial strain led to the attempts to centralize, merge with Bern or separate which eventually ended in 1983 with Ostermundigen becoming an independent municipality.

[5] The municipality is located in the lower Worblental (Worblen valley) at the foot of the Ostermundigenberg and the Hättenberg.

[7] The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Tanner Knife Argent handled Or in bend between two Mullets of the last.

[11] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (12,677 or 82.0%) as their first language, Italian is the second most common (677 or 4.4%) and French is the third (372 or 2.4%).

The historical population is given in the following chart:[3][14] In the 2011 federal election the most popular party was the SPS which received 24.9% of the vote.

In the tertiary sector; 853 or 22.7% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 374 or 10.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 163 or 4.3% were in a hotel or restaurant, 1,204 or 32.1% were in the information industry, 215 or 5.7% were the insurance or financial industry, 193 or 5.1% were technical professionals or scientists, 156 or 4.2% were in education and 259 or 6.9% were in health care.

[11] From the 2000 census[update], 3,578 or 23.2% were Roman Catholic, while 7,995 or 51.7% 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.