Teuffenthal is a municipality in the administrative district of Thun in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Teuffenthal is first mentioned in 1344 as Toeffental. The land around the modern village and what ever settlements were there belonged to the Herrschaft of Heimberg in the 13th century. The Heimberg's were under the authority of the Counts of Kyburg. On 11 November 1382, Rudolf II von Kyburg, attempted unsuccessfully to attack Solothurn. His attack started the Burgdorferkrieg (also Kyburgerkrieg) with the Old Swiss Confederacy. Bern used the war to expand north into the Aargau and south into the Oberland. After the Kyburg defeat, as part of the peace treaty, Bern bought the city of Thun and all its surrounding lands including Teuffenthal. Under Bernese rule, the small farming village was part of the distant parish of Hilterfingen until 1928 when it joined the parish of Buchen. In 1935 Teuffenthal became an independent parish. In 1989 a school was founded in the municipality, however in 2008 it closed and the students traveled to the school in Buchen for their education. Traditionally the rural, agrarian village raised crops and livestock on the valley floor, summered livestock in alpine meadows and cut timber. Agriculture still remains a major part of the local economy. In 2005 a total of 62% of all jobs in the municipality were in agriculture. Geography Teuffenthal has an area of . As of the 2004/06 survey, a total of or 46.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 50.3% is forested. Of rest of the municipality or 3.1% is settled (buildings or roads), or 0.7% is either rivers or lakes. Between the 1981 and 2004/06 surveys the settled area increased from to , an increase of 55.56%. From the same survey, housing and buildings made up 2.0% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.1%. A total of 48.6% of the total land area is heavily forested and 1.8% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 2.0% is used for growing crops and 38.2% is pasturage and 6.0% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. It lies in the valley of the river Zulg on the north flank of Blueme mountain, some eastward of the district capital Thun. The municipality has no direct center, but consists of isolated hamlets and scattered farm settlements. On 31 December 2009 Amtsbezirk