Köniz (, ) is a statistical town, however considers itself still as a village, and a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district right on the southern border to Bern in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The municipality of Köniz as a single settlement would belong to the 15 most populous towns in Switzerland. It is also part of the larger agglomeration of Bern of about 400,000 inhabitants. The official language of Köniz is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect. History The current municipality has long been inhabited; there have been a number of Bronze- and Iron Age finds, as well as Roman villas (villae rusticae) and Early Middle Ages graveyards. The oldest parts of the current reformed parish church (formerly SS. Peter and Paul) date back to around 1100. There may have been other previous buildings on this site, but archaeological digs have uncovered no evidence of them thus far. Köniz is first mentioned in 1011 as Chunicis. According to legend the church was founded by Burgundian King Rudolph II and his wife Bertha. The parish did not only comprise the current municipality, but also the area around present day Bern, around 5 km away. In 1191 it became the parish church of the newly founded town, until it was given the status of its own parish in 1276. There was an Augustinian monastery at the church, which was given to the Teutonic Knights by King Heinrich VII, the son and heir to the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich II, in 1226. The order established a commendam at the church, which belonged to the Ballei of Schwaben-Elsass-Burgund, as well as a settlement in Bern. One of the friars was installed as parish priest. With the growth of the parish of Bern, the settlement there was raised to commendam status, whose principle was the parish priest in Bern. The Köniz commendam was secularised in 1528 during the Bernese Reformation, but was given back to the Order in 1552 after pressure from the Catholic Cantons. In 1729 the Order sold the commendam to Bern. A bailiwick was established, which existed until the collapse of the old Bern in 1798. The municipality of Köniz in its present form, came into being in 1846. Geography Köniz has an area of . Of this area, or 50.5% is used for