When starting my first article, it was not very difficult for me to decide which country to start from. Although I was born and raised in Turkey, I travelled more in Switzerland from the moment I settled in this country when I was 26 years old, in 4 years. Well, the fact that Switzerland is a small country also has a great impact on this.
In this article, I wrote about the general information about Switzerland. Check out this post for everything you need to know such as the Swiss flag, its capital, its population, language, religion, economy, administration, climate, and so on!
1- What’s the Meaning of The Name and the Flag of Switzerland?
Switzerland is officially the Swiss Confederation and in Latin, it’s Confoederatio Helvetica. This is where the abbreviation CH comes from.
Swiss flag;
At the end of the 14th century, when Swiss soldiers were going to war, they began to wear emblems with a white cross on a red background in order to distinguish themselves from their enemies.
As you know, the reason they chose this symbol was that it was also a sign of Christian belief. Later, they used this emblem primarily as a seal and then as a military flag. And in 1889 it was adopted as the national flag.
All other flags in the world are rectangular. The Swiss flag is square. This makes the Swiss flag one of the two square flags among the world flags. Another square flag belongs to the Vatican.
The emblem of the Red Cross foundation looks just like the Swiss flag, right? In fact, this emblem was designed in honor of the Swiss Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, on the basis of the Swiss flag and was created as a red cross on white by changing the colors of the background with the cross only.
The core of Turkish Red Crescent’s flag is actually based on the Swiss Flag. Only the sign of the cross has taken the shape of a moon in Muslim countries.
2- Where is Switzerland?
Switzerland is located in Western Europe, with its de facto capital Bern (because Switzerland technically does not have a capital city), with its neighbors Germany in the north, Italy in the south, France in the west, and Austria and Liechtenstein in the east. It is a tiny country that makes people feel like rather in a large city due to its distance to neighbor countries.
But unfortunately, Switzerland doesn’t have a coast to the sea. Although this is not a problem for travelers, it is a bit of a problem for those like me who live here and pine for the sea all the time. But it should be noted that in this 41.285 km² country, there are exactly 7 huge thousand (7000) lakes and you can swim in these lakes without hesitating.
Some of them are at the top of the Alps, and their temperatures can fall to minuses. Still, I think you should definitely swim in one of those.
If we take Zurich Lake as an example, the water temperature rises to 28 degrees in summer. So we can get a little bit of a sea feeling.
3- What’s the Capital of Switzerland?
Switzerland doesn’t have an official capital. The de facto capital of Switzerland is Bern. Bern is Switzerland’s 5th largest city, with a population of 133,000. The founder of the city, Duke Berchtold V. Berchtold, wanted to name the first animal he encountered on a hunting trip to the city, and he was the first to come across a bear. That is why the city was named “bern“, which is the plural of the German word bear, Bären, in the language of that region.
4- 4- What is Switzerland’s Telephone Code?
Switzerland’s international telephone code is +41.
5- 5- What’s the Local Time in Switzerland?
Switzerland is in the GMT + 2 timezone.
6- Which Language Is Spoken in Switzerland?
Now, this topic is a bit complicated. There are 4 official languages in Switzerland: German, French, Italian and Romansh. The federal government has to use all 4 languages. Even in parliamentary meetings, all 4 languages are translated simultaneously.
I watched the head of the Confederation speaking to the public about Covid-19 recently. Their explanation started first in German, then in French, then in Italian.. (it goes on like this)
The most spoken language is German, which is 64% of the population. French is next, with a rate of 24%. While the Italian-speaking population is around 9%, Romansh is spoken by 0.5% of the population in the canton of Graubünden alone.
As it is not enough to have 4 official languages, of course, each language has a different dialect. It would be very accurate to say that all dialects are different languages on their own. While standard German, French, Italian, and Romansh are used in official areas such as newspapers, radio, and television, the language spoken by the people in each region differs.
* Swiss German
For example, I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The people here speak Swiss German, which is quite different from standard German. Like that is not enough, the Swiss-German also has many dialects, because why not?
You are encounter different dialects in each region, and you may find that people from different cantons have a great deal of difficulty understanding each other. For this reason, people who have difficulty understanding each other’s dialects can solve the situation by speaking standard German.
* Swiss French
While Swiss French is the second most spoken language in the country, it is said that there is little difference from standard French. Swiss-French speakers pronounce the vowels much longer than standard French speakers. This makes them seem to speak slow. (That’s what people told me at least)
* Swiss Italian
In the region where Swiss-Italian is spoken, the situation seems a bit complicated. Swiss Italian is somewhat a mixed language, including some German and French words.
* Romansh
And finally, there is another language called Romansh. It’s an interesting language that comes from the Romani language family just like French and Italian. However, it takes its present form by being influenced by the Celtic and Retsina languages of the time.
The Romans conquered the present-day Grisons (Graubünden) region in the 15th century BC, where the Celtic and Retsina languages spoken by the indigenous people. The Italian of the Romans blended over time and this language called Romansh was formed.
There might be very few people speaking this language, but Romansh has exactly 5 dialects. And even these dialects have become so different over time that two people speaking two different dialects of Romansh cannot understand each other and begin to speak Italian or German in order to communicate!
There is also English of course. Although the Swiss states that they do not like to speak English in their own country (because of nationalist feelings), every individual in Switzerland speaks at least two languages, mostly several languages. Especially in big cities, English is spoken by everyone as if it is the mother tongue of the country.
7- What is the Population of Switzerland?
The population of the country is only 8.5 million. The majority of the indigenous population is the elderly. However, another vast majority of the population (25%) consist of foreigners, which means that almost half of the young population are foreigners.
The majority of the foreign population is Italians, followed by Germans, Portuguese, French, Serbs, Turks, Spaniards, and Austrians. Among the Asian races, Switzerland is home to the most Tamil refugees fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Especially Zurich hosts so many foreign people that you will inevitably hear English being spoken on the streets.
8- 8- What is Switzerland’s Currency?
Switzerland’s currency is the Swiss Franc. Its international shortcode is CHF.
1 CHF is this much.
9- 9- What is the Swiss Climate Like?
The weather in Switzerland is cold, ice cold. However, I will write that the climate in Switzerland is mild because the sources state it as a temperate climate. But I know that the climate is cold, very cold. The photo below is from January.
But OK, don’t want to exaggerate, because the temperature varies enormously from region to region. For example, the Ticino region, which is the border with Italy, is hot. After all, it borders with Italy. But he region close to Germany is quite cold.
Even though the summers are not like Sicilia, they are as hot as Istanbul, but the summer does not last long. It will be hot for 1-2 months (under the best conditions), then the weather starts to cool again.
It rains all year, but mostly in summer. In these periods when it rains a lot, warm winds called blow-dry winds blow through the south of the Alps.
For those who will visit Switzerland, Switzerland is an ideal holiday destination for all seasons if you ask me. Although you hear about Switzerland more with winter holidays, you can also have a pleasant summer holiday. This photo is from Lake Zurich.
10- Politics of Switzerland
First of all, yes, what is said about direct democracy is true.
Since the introduction of the 1848 federal constitution, Switzerland has been governed by direct democracy, a system of government based on constitutional initiative and referendum. This means that if a group of citizens who do not accept a law approved by the parliament and want to have the public questioned can collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days after the law is passed, they can request a referendum.
According to the result of the referendum, a decision is made to accept or reject the law. In addition, Swiss people can request a constitutional amendment using their constitutional initiative rights. For this, they only need to collect 100,000 signatures and then they can submit their request for amendments to the national vote.
In Switzerland, there are two assemblies called the Swiss Parliament (Federal Assembly) and the Federal Government. Federal Assembly is formed by the Council of States and the National Council. The Council of States has 46 members; 2 members from each canton and 1 from each half canton(!). Elections to the National Council are held with a proportional representation system. The council has 200 members.
The presidency duty belongs to the Federal Government, which consists of 7 members elected from Switzerland’s most voted political parties. In other words, the state in this country is not governed by a single party or a single person, but by 7 people elected from different parties. One of the seven persons forming the council to carry out the presidency is elected as the President of the Swiss Confederation for a year.
Switzerland consists of 26 cantons, 23 of which are full and 3 are half. The cantons of Basel, Appenzell and Unterwalden consist of two half cantons, and these half cantons cannot send 2 members to the State Council like full cantons. They have the right to send only 1 member each: ‘( Cruel other cantons!!
11- Religion in Switzerland
There is no state religion in Switzerland. However, in this country Christians are obliged to pay taxes to churches. Citizens who do not want this tax have to leave their religion and deregister from the church. Otherwise, they have to continue paying taxes to the church.
Almost 40% of Switzerland is affiliated to the Roman Catholic Church and approximately 31% to Protestant sects. They are overly devoted to their sects, and some villages have some signs as “This village is Catholic” or “This village is Protestant” at the entrances. Oh, these crazy Swiss…
12- Economy of Switzerland
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate… No wonder that a country that produces such excellent chocolates is ranked first in the world in terms of per capita consumption of chocolate.
It would be right to say Switzerland is one of the most stable national economies in the world. It has one of the richest markets in the world. It ranks 4th in the national income per capita ranking.
While the people in Switzerland mostly work in the finance, banking and trade sectors, other important sectors of the country’s economy are tourism and industry. Companies such as Swatch, Nestle and two of the world’s largest banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, are based in Switzerland and the purchasing power is very high.
Switzerland is often very expensive for a tourist from anywhere in the world. But salaries are high here and life is not expensive for those who work and live in Switzerland. (I know it’s questionable, but the bold word above is important). Even a person with minimum wage can eat outside, have a few glasses of drink with friends, eat a healthy and varied diet, spare time and money for hobbies, and travel a couple of times a year. What else to ask for?
So this is the list of general information about Switzerland. Don’t forget to check out my article which includes interesting information about Switzerland. If you want to learn about traveling in Switzerland, you can visit here and about living in Switzerland check here!
That’s all I have to say. What about you? Do you have anything to add? We can meet in the comments 🙂
