Thunstetten is a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

[4] The Thunstetten Commandery was established prior to 1210 for the Knights Hospitaller by an unknown benefactor.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Commandery lands grew with donations and purchases from local nobles.

At the height of their power, they owned land in Oberaargau, the Bernese Seeland and around Solothurn.

They bought vineyards in Twann and rights over village churches in Lotzwil, Ursenbach, Egerkingen, Aetigen, Rohrbach and Waldkirchen (now part of Niederbipp).

The castle remained with the Erlach family until 1746, after which it changed hands multiple times.

A foundation was established in 1971 to maintain and manage the castle as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

[3] The area of today's municipality consisted of various population centers in the 13th century, which became villages in the 14th.

The villages remained fairly small, in 1780 Bützberg was the largest with 31 houses, Welschland had 24 and Thunstetten had 21.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, many of the large farms were subdivided into smaller ones while the commons became private property.

The small farmers, who lacked enough land to feed their families and relied on the commons to make up the difference, were forced to find additional income from cottage industries such as weaving, knitting, spinning and yarn selling.

[9] The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Latin Cross throughout Argent.

[13] Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (2,671 or 90.3%) as their first language, Albanian is the second most common (79 or 2.7%) and Italian is the third (39 or 1.3%).

The historical population is given in the following chart:[3][16] Thunstetten Castle is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

[17] Thunstetten Castle was built as a country manor house in the Bernese Oberaargau in 1711 to 1713[3] or 1713 to 1715.

The castle was built for the Landvogt Hieronymus von Erlach following plans by the architect Joseph Abeille.

In the tertiary sector; 158 or 30.6% were in wholesale or retail sales or the repair of motor vehicles, 90 or 17.4% were in the movement and storage of goods, 27 or 5.2% were in a hotel or restaurant, 2 or 0.4% were in the information industry, 151 or 29.2% were technical professionals or scientists, 4 or 0.8% were in education and 23 or 4.4% were in health care.

[13] From the 2000 census[update], 401 or 13.6% were Roman Catholic, while 2,025 or 68.5% 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.

The rate of violations of immigration, visa and work permit laws was 3.3 per thousand residents.