Seftigen is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

[3] The oldest trace of a settlement in the area is a Roman estate house discovered in Räbzälg.

Following the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the area remained inhabited, evidenced by an early medieval cemetery at Leimeried.

In the 15th century Louis von Seftigen turned the village into the center of a semi-independent court.

Eventually, Jakob von Wattenwyl reunited the two halves of the court in 1523 and incorporated it into the Burgistein Herrschaft again.

From then until the 1798 French invasion the Lords of Burgistein and the von Buren family alternated presiding over the court.

In 1901-02 the Gürbetal railway opened up stations in Burgistein and Seftigen and began to transform the rural farming village.

In the 1960s it became more of a bedroom community and the new developments of Zälg, Berg and Allmend opened up to house the growing population.

Today agriculture still provides slightly less than one-quarter of the jobs in the municipality with small businesses making up the rest.

However, over three-quarters of the workforce commute to jobs in nearby cities and towns.

The rest of the municipality is 0.62 km2 (0.24 sq mi) or 15.9% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.03 km2 (7.4 acres) or 0.8% is either rivers or lakes.

[6] The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per chevron embowed Gules and Argent and in chief a Rose of the last barbed and seeded proper.

[9] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (2,014 or 97.0%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (13 or 0.6%) and Serbo-Croatian is the third (7 or 0.3%).

In the tertiary sector; 67 or 37.4% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 9 or 5.0% were in the movement and storage of goods, 14 or 7.8% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 1.1% were the insurance or financial industry, 9 or 5.0% were technical professionals or scientists, 20 or 11.2% were in education and 40 or 22.3% were in health care.

[23] From the 2000 census[update], 1,635 or 78.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church, while 118 or 5.7% were Roman Catholic.

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.

The library has (as of 2008[update]) 3,000 books or other media, and loaned out 4,531 items in the same year.

It was open a total of 99 days with an average of 4 hours per week during that year.