
Jura, Switzerland
French is spoken in the Swiss canton of Jura. With one exception: people speak German in the community of Ederswiler.
The canton of Jura is located in the northwest of the Swiss Confederation, the capital of Jura is called Delsberg.
Jura’s neighbors are France and the cantons of Neuchâtel, Bern, Solothurn and Basel-Landschaft.
The canton is quite sparsely populated and is also one of the smaller cantons in Switzerland.
Many of the places in the canton have a French and a German name. This is because Jura is in the immediate vicinity of France.
They are sure to know a special breed of horse lovers and riders: the Freiberger horse breed. They were also called Jura horses in the past and are still known by this name today. The canton of Jura is known for its horse breeding, many different professional sport horses are trained and bred here, but farm animals are also born here. The Jura horse is more of a farm horse than a sporting horse.
The history of the canton of Jura
As the youngest canton in Switzerland, the canton of Jura has a very short history. But it is no less interesting than that of the many other cantons.
Jurassic came about because of political and cultural tensions founded. In 1947 a German-speaking politician from Bern refused a Bern-Jura politician to run the building department. This inevitably led to annoyance. The Moeckli affair developed out of these tensions. It was too important an office to be given to a French politician, was the reason given at the time. On September 24, 1978, a referendum was held and it was decided that on January 1, 1979 Jura could separate from the canton of Bern. As a result, a 165-year membership was declared ended.
Jura used to belong to the Principality of Basel. In the Middle Atles this was an episcopal territorial state.
Later in the 19th century, more precisely in 1815 during the Congress of Vienna, Basel was assigned to the canton of Bern. Bern had previously lost Aargau and Vaud and they wanted to compensate the canton in this way.
In the 1960s and 1970s there were serious riots in the canton. The Béliers youth organization carried out explosives here. They terrified the entire population. Among other things, they destroyed the soldier memorial from the First World War.
Despite all the tensions, there were always requests and votes for reunification. There is now a real law question. Named commissions are working on a solution that should satisfy all parties. The Swiss Confederation has appointed this commission. A project was started towards the end of 2004, which is concerned with envisaging a completely new canton. It is intended to unite today’s canton of Jura and the southern Jura. It remains to be seen whether this will reunite the Jurassic people.