with its neighbors and the growing city of Thun. The railroad brought industry and jobs to the municipality. In 1953 the Selve AG metal works opened in the village. The large factory brought other machinery and engineering companies into the municipality and fueled population growth. Completion of the A8 motorway in 1971 provided another connection for the growing population. Along with small businesses and factories, a waste water treatment plant was built. Today the plant treats water for 32 neighboring communities. When the factory closed in 1993, the local economy was diversified enough that the population remained steady. In 2005 about 70% of the working population commuted to jobs outside the municipality, however about 48% of the jobs in Uetendorf were filled by workers who commuted into the municipality. The Eichberg estate, which was built in 1792–1793 for Carolus von Fischer, became a boarding school in 1932. The boarding school remained open until 1984. The Uetendorfberg Switzerland Foundation opened a school and residence for the deaf in 1921. Uetendorf had its own primary school and shared a secondary school with Thierachern. However the secondary school district dissolved in 1959, forcing the municipality to build their own school in that year. Geography Uetendorf has an area of . As of the 2004 survey, a total of or 71.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 7.9% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 20.9% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes. Between the 1981 and 2004 surveys the settled area increased from to , an increase of 36.77%. From the same survey, industrial buildings made up 3.5% of the total area while housing and buildings made up 10.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 5.5%. A total of 6.4% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 53.4% is used for growing crops and 15.9% is pasturage, while 1.9% is used for orchards or vine crops. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality is on the western edge of the Aare valley. It consists of the village of Uetendorf, which is made up of the Dorf, Berg and Allmend neighborhoods, as well as scattered farm houses. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk Thun, the municipality's former district, was dissolved. On the following day, 1 January 2010, it joined