Grandval () is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (Jura Bernois). Grandval also used to be known under its German name Granfel or Granfelden, but these forms are no longer commonly used. History The oldest evidence of a settlement in the area is a reasonable well preserved section of a Roman road. Around 640 what became the Moutier-Grandval Abbey was established outside the village of Grandval. The town of Moutier then developed around the Abbey complex. Grandval is first mentioned around 900 as Grandemvallem. The village chapel of St. Martin was first mentioned in 962. By the 14th century it had become the parish church for Grandval parish, which included most of the communities in the Grand Val/Moutier valley. In 1531 the village, its church and the parish converted to the new faith of the Protestant Reformation. Beginning in 1663 the church was almost constantly under construction for several centuries. Major reconstruction projects happened in 1701-06 and 1927. For most of its history, the village of Grandval was owned by the Abbey. After the 1797 French victory and the Treaty of Campo Formio, Grandval became part of the French Département of Mont-Terrible. Three years later, in 1800 it became part of the Département of Haut-Rhin. After Napoleon's defeat and the Congress of Vienna, Grandval was assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815. Until about 1900, the local economy was still dominated by agriculture with a few cottage industries that manufactured pottery, watch parts and arquebuses. This began to change with the growth of the machinery manufacturing industry in nearby Moutier and the construction of the Solothurn-Moutier railroad in 1904-08. A number of industrial factories settled in Crémines and remained. Today over half of the working population is in the industrial sector. Geography Grandval has an area of . As of 2012, a total of or 44.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 50.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 4.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and or 0.5% is unproductive land. During the same year, housing and buildings made up 2.1% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.3%. Out of the forested land, 44.2% of the total land area is heavily forested and 6.2% is covered with orchards or small clusters of