trees. Of the agricultural land, 20.6% is pastures and 25.2% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 7.6% is unproductive vegetation and 12.1% is too rocky for vegetation. Aeschi bei Spiez is located along a ridge between the Kander valley and Lake Thun. The municipality includes Aeschi bei Spiez and Aeschiried, Heustrich-Emdtal, Mülenen and Alpen im hinteren Suldtal. The parish church serves both Aeschi and Krattigen. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Frutigen, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined the newly created Verwaltungskreis Frutigen-Niedersimmental. Coat of arms The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Argent a Bear paw Sable issuant from chief sinister. Demographics Aeschi bei Spiez has a population () of . , 4.9% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (2000-2010) the population has changed at a rate of 8.4%. Migration accounted for 9.6%, while births and deaths accounted for -0.1%. Most of the population () speaks German (1,927 or 95.2%) as their first language, Serbo-Croatian is the second most common (25 or 1.2%) and Albanian is the third (19 or 0.9%). There are 10 people who speak French, 3 people who speak Italian. , the population was 50.2% male and 49.8% female. The population was made up of 977 Swiss men (47.4% of the population) and 57 (2.8%) non-Swiss men. There were 984 Swiss women (47.7%) and 43 (2.1%) non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality, 738 or about 36.4% were born in Aeschi bei Spiez and lived there in 2000. There were 803 or 39.7% who were born in the same canton, while 252 or 12.4% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 158 or 7.8% were born outside of Switzerland. , children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 23.4% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 60.2% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 16.4%. , there were 924 people who were single and never married in the municipality. There were 902 married individuals, 116 widows or widowers and 83 individuals who are divorced. , there were 223 households that consist of only one person and 95 households with five or more people. , a total of 709 apartments (71.9% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 239 apartments (24.2%) were seasonally occupied