Schangnau is a municipality in the administrative district of Emmental in the Canton of Bern in Switzerland .

Schangnau is first mentioned in 1306 as Schoengowe.

By the 14th century the Ministerialis (unfree knights in the service of a feudal overlord) family of Sumiswald , in service to the Kyburgs, owned most of the village. Between 1363 and 1389 they sold their land and rights to the local nobleman Jost von Wald. His descendants sold the village to the city of Bern in 1420. By the second half of the 15th century both Bern and Lucerne claimed the village as they attempted to expand their borders to the detriment of the other.