The country

Lakes, plains, valleys, hills, forests and mountains line the landscape of this country with 8.3 million inhabitants and a total area of 41,285 km2. Switzerland is a Western European country bordered by Germany in the North, Austria and Lichtenstein in the East, France in the West and Italy in the South.

The culture of diversity

Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons with four official languages. 63% of its people speak German, 23% French, 8% Italian and 0,5% Romansh. Some cantons are bilingual. This is the case of Fribourg and Valais (French and German) and Graubünden (German and Romansh).

In 1291, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden united in order to defend their territory. Their union formed the Old Swiss Confederacy. Since those times, neighboring territories have joined them in order to form the current, Swiss Confederation.

In blue - French speaking territoryIn red - German speaking territoryIn green - Italian speaking territory In yellow - Romansh speaking territory

Many nations

The diversity of language and regional cultures is enriched by the resident foreign population. 24% of the population in Switzerland come from 40 different countries. European countries (EU/EFTA) are the most represented with Italy, then Germany, Portugal, France, accounting for more than half of the foreign residents.

Popul’art

The Swiss-German author Johanna Spyri, published in 1880 a novel about the events of a young girl's life in her grandfather’s care. Originally written for children, Heidi became one of the most popular literary heroines in Switzerland.

POP’FIGURES : Roitschäggättä literally means “covered with soot”. Lötchental is known for its tradition of mask making displayed to full effect in the week before Ash Wednesday for the extraordinary Roitschäggättä, when locals wear grotesque, shaggy masks for a series of night-time parades through the villages in an ancient Lenten ceremony.

POP’CELEBREATIONS : Schwingen (to Swing) also known as Swiss wrestling and natively as breeches-lifting. It is a style of folk wrestling native to Switzerland. Its origins in the alpine culture can be traced to the early 17th century. The first person to pin his/her opponent’s shoulders to the ground wins the bout.

POP’SOUNDS :The alphorn is a labrophone consisting of a wooden natural horn of conical bore used by mountain dwellers. 17th – 19th century alpine myths suggest that alphorn-like instruments had frequently been used as signal instruments in village communities since medieval times or earlier substituting the lack of church.

Art and literature

Swiss artists and novelists who marked history between the 19th and 21th century and who have contributed, by their talent, to European cultural heritage.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was an author and a dramatist. The politically active author’s work included avant-garde dramas and satire. He wrote numerous sketches, plays and novels, alternating comedy and tragedy played by caricatural characters. One of his major successes was “the Physicist” in 1962 which deals with issues concerning science and its responsibility for dangerous changes in the world.

Stephan Eicher is a singer born in Bern in 1960. His songs are sung in a variety of languages including French, German, English, Italian, Swiss German and Romansh. Sometimes he even uses different languages in the same piece. His international carrier started with hit songs such as “déjeuner en paix” in 1991.

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) was a painter whose early works were portraits, landscapes and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism he called “Parallelism”. Parallelism emphasized the symmetry and rhythm he believed formed the basis of human society.Ferdinand Hodler

Design and construction

Architect, designer and sculptor from the 19th to the 21th century contributed to building a vision of aestheticism and shaping the landscape of Switzerland and far beyond.

Mario Botta is an architect who was born in 1943. His designs tend to include a strong sense of geometry, often being based on very simple shapes, yet creating unique volumes of space. Among numerous well-known buildings, he designed the Museum Jean Tinguely in Basel.Mario Botta

Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Janneret-Gris 1887 – 1965) was an architect and a designer. He began experimenting with furniture design in 1928. His creations were mainly chairs, sofas and long chairs. His pieces of furniture were inspired by the idea of subtlety, proportion and harmony. Le Corbusier

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was a sculptor who experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors. The rough, eroded, heavily worked surfaces representing human beings typify his technique. Reduced to their very core, these figures evoke lone trees in winter that have lost their foliage.Alberto Giacometti

Myths andtraditions

William Tell is a folk hero. His legend is set in the time of the original foundation of the old Swiss Confederacy, in the early 14th century. According to the legend, Tell, who was an expert marksman with a crossbow, assassinated Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of Habsburg Austria located in Altdorf, canton of Uri. Tell’s shot for liberty sparked a rebellion leading to the formation of the modern Swiss Confederation.

Jean-Henri Dunant (1828-1910) was the founder of the Red Cross and the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Price. During a business trip in 1859, he was witness to the aftermath of the battle of Solferino in Italy. He recorded his memories and experiences in the book “A Memory of Solferino” (1862) which inspired the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A Confederate army of 20,000 men encountered the military limits of federal power politics at the battle of Marignano. Francis I of France concluded a landmark peace with the conquered people in 1516. This peace formed the contractual basis of Switzerland’s reticence in foreign policy for centuries. In the Federal Agreement of 1815 and ever since, neutrality has been a central principle in foreign policy.

Landsgemeinde or “cantonal assembly” is a public voting system which constitutes one of the oldest forms of direct democracy, dating back to the late Middle Ages. Even if nowadays, only Glarus and Appenzell Inner Rhodes use this form of voting, it is commonly acknowledged as the symbol of the direct democracy at the core of the Swiss political institutions.

Know-How

Watchmaking only began in Switzerland after the Hugenot refugees brought the manufacture of portable timepieces to Geneva in the second half of the 16th century. Watch-making production soon spread over the Jura Mountain in such a way that during the 20th century, 90% of the Swiss watch production was concentrated in the Jura Arc. The region has since been known as Watch Valley.

Using hydraulic power is a long tradition in Switzerland inspired by its mountainous topography as well as by its numerous lakes, streams and rivers. The first hydroelectric dam built with concrete in Europe was Maigrauge (construction date : 1870-1872) in the canton of Fribourg. Since that time, 160 large dams have been built, mainly in the Alps.

The history of chocolate in Europe dates back to the 16th century. At that time, it was a sign of status and a fashionable drink of the aristocracy. Chocolate arrived in Switzerland on a larger scale at the beginning of the 19th century with François Louis Cailler who opened the first mechanized chocolate production facilities in Vevey, Canton of Vaud. From that time and until the first half of the 20th century, 17 renouned chocolate factories have been founded in Switzerland.

(Animated Slide)

Please let me conclude this visit with Switzerland's time capsule by taking a look at its pin board… and, as it has

always been the tradition, a piece of Alp Horn musk.