Switzerland Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Switzerland with its capital Berne is located in Europe (Central Europe, east of France). It covers some 41,291 square kilometres (slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey) with 7,581,000 citizens. German, French, Italian and Raeto-Romance are the official languages spoken in Switzerland (consider regional differences). Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, France and Austria are bordering countries.

Switzerland is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The climate is temperate, but varies with altitude. Switzerland has cold rainy/snowy winters and cool to warm summers with occasional showers. Switzerland is a peaceful, prosperous, and stable modern market economy with low unemployment, a highly skilled labor force, and a per capita GDP larger than that of the big Western European economies. Major international airports are in Zurich, Geneva and Basel, with smaller airports in Lugano and Berne. Common tourist destinations within Switzerland are easily reachable by car, e.g. Geneva from central eastern France, and Zurich from southern Germany. The Swiss will spoil you with fantastic transportation - swift, disturbingly punctual trains, clean buses, and a half dozen different kinds of mountain transport systems, integrated into a coherent system. Switzerland is famous for a few key goods: watches, chocolate, cheese, and Swiss Army knives (Note that these must be packed in hold luggage). Swiss employment law bans working on Sundays, so shops generally stay closed. Switzerland is not surprisingly one of the safest countries in Europe, but anywhere that attracts Rolex-wearing bankers and crowds of distracted tourists will also bring out a few pickpockets. Obviously, keep an eye on belongings, especially in the midst of summer crowds.

Pictures from Capital (Berne)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Switzerland

The topography features mostly mountains (Alps in south, Jura in northwest) with a central plateau of rolling hills, plains, and large lakes. The average density of population is about 183 per km². The climate in Switzerland can be described as temperate, but varying with altitude with cold, cloudy, rainy/snowy winters, cool to warm, cloudy, humid summers with occasional showers. Potential natural disasters are avalanches, landslides or flash floods.

To reach someone in Switzerland dial +41 prior to a number. There are 4,650,000 installed telephones. And there are 9,255,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".ch". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 26 regions/states in Switzerland we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Swiss population grew at a rate of 0.22% (or by 16,924 citizens). With 65,943 deaths and 72,880 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.09%. 9,987 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Switzerland: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.