Switzerland

C

Principal Cities

The capital is Bern, with a population of 122,178 (2005 estimate). Other major cities are Zurich (347,517, 2005 estimate), Switzerland’s largest city and financial centre; Basel (163,930, 2005 estimate), a commercial centre noted for textile and clothing manufacturing; Geneva (178,722, 2005 estimate), a cultural, financial, and manufacturing centre noted for watchmaking and jewellery; and Lausanne (117,388, 2005 estimate), a rail junction and centre for the manufacture of iron goods.

D

Religion

Roman Catholicism is the faith of about 46 per cent of the population of Switzerland; about 47 per cent are Protestants. Jews and other groups, including those without a stated religion, make up a small minority. Freedom of worship is guaranteed. In 1973 a referendum repealed articles of the constitution that were responsible for the banning of the Jesuit order and the founding of new religious houses. Several important developments of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century occurred in Switzerland; John Calvin instituted some of his theories at Geneva.

E

Language

The official languages of Switzerland are German, French, and Italian. The fourth national language, Romansh, a Romance language, is classed as an official language for use when communicating with Romansh people. Schwyzerdütsch (Swiss German, Alsatian), or “Allemanisch” (“Alsatian” in France), is a mother tongue for over 60 per cent of the population and is used more widely than Standard German, which is not a mother tongue for many people. There are a number of different varieties spoken in the separate cantons and some of these are said to be mutually unintelligible. Newspapers and magazines are written in Standard German, however, and education is in Standard German.

About a third of the population speaks French daily and it is the language of education in French-speaking areas like the cantons of Fribourg, Jura, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel, and Geneva. In the Italian regions (the whole of Ticino and parts of Graubünden), Italian is spoken by most either as a first or second language and around 15 per cent of the population uses Italian every day. Lombard, a language related to Italian, is a mother tongue for more speakers than is Standard Italian in Switzerland, particularly in the Ticino canton. Romansh is spoken in the canton of Graubünden (Grisons), along the borders with Austria and Italy, and in the south-east. It is a mother tongue for less than 1 per cent of the population.

Other indigenous language spoken are Sinte Romani, an Indo-Iranian language; Walser, a Germanic language whose ancestry comes from the Wallis canton, similar to Schwyzerdütsch; and Franco-Provençal, a Gallo-Romance language, in the Valais canton and parts of Fribourg. Three different sign languages are used (Swiss-German, Swiss-French, and Swiss-Italian Sign Language).

F

Education

Switzerland has exerted a deep influence on European and international education for centuries. The academic excellence of Swiss universities, including those at Basel (founded in 1460), Lausanne (1537), Zurich (1833), Geneva (1599), Lugano (1996), Lucerne (1070), Neuchâtel (1838), Bern (1528), Fribourg (1889) as well as the Federal Institute of Technology (1853) in Zurich, has attracted numerous foreign students. Education, particularly religious education, has been inspired in part by the French theologian John Calvin, who settled in Switzerland in 1536. Modern education has been largely influenced by the 18th-century Geneva-born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The theories of Johann Pestalozzi, the 18th-century educational reformer who advocated that children should learn from their own experiences, have contributed to the development of education throughout the world. In more recent times, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget became widely recognized for his insights into the learning abilities and habits of children; and many of the early studies of Albert Einstein into relativity were carried out in Zurich.

The Swiss constitution of 1848 provided for free and compulsory education. Under the constitution of 1874, as amended in 1902, the federal government confined its efforts to higher education; the cantons and half-cantons were required to establish free, compulsory elementary schools with subsidies, but without control, from the federal government. These schools are taught in the local official language, but students may also study the other national languages as well.

Most cantons provide secondary schools for students aged 12 to 15, gymnasiums (college-preparatory schools), and teacher-training institutes, in addition to various institutions of higher learning and special schools. Illiteracy is negligible. In 2000 primary schools in Switzerland had a total enrolment of 537,744 pupils; secondary schools had a combined attendance of some 553,618 students; and institutions of higher learning had an aggregate enrolment of 170,085 students.

G

Culture

Swiss culture has contributed notably to literature, art, and music. It is an amalgam of the German, French, and Italian cultures embodied in the Swiss linguistic regions; however, it is separated from these parent cultures, for example, by Swiss dialects and cultural cross-pollination. From early times Switzerland has been exposed to many foreign influences, and as early as the Middle Ages the country had achieved a high cultural level. Carolingian culture, particularly painting and Romanesque architecture, flourished, and the St Gallen (Sankt Gallen) monastery was a brilliant centre of Western culture.

Since then most European cultural trends, such as humanism and the Reformation, have been assimilated. Calvin and Huldreich Zwingli, another 16th-century Swiss religious leader, had an enormous impact on the culture of the country. By the 18th century, however, Swiss culture had become increasingly internationalized. In contemporary Switzerland, theatre and music flourish. The Stadttheater Basel, Stadttheater Bern, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Théâtre de la Comédie in Geneva, and Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne are the leading centres of drama; and in the world of music the Opernhaus Zurich, the municipal opera house, is particularly well known.

The library of Basel University, with about 2.6 million volumes, is among the largest in Switzerland. The Swiss National Library, in Bern, and the libraries of the United Nations (UN) and of the International Labour Organization, both in Geneva, are among the most important specialized libraries. Switzerland has many federal, cantonal, and municipal public libraries.

The National Museum, in Zurich, houses the most important of several large historical collections in Switzerland. Fine arts museums in Basel, Bern, and Zurich contain collections of 15th- and 16th-century German, 17th- and 18th-century Dutch and Flemish, 19th-century French Impressionist, and contemporary European works.

Swiss literature comprises Latin-Swiss literature and the more important German-Swiss and French-Swiss literatures, which are closely linked to the literatures of the neighbouring countries. Less significant are the Italian-Swiss, Romansh, and Swiss-dialect literatures. Latin-Swiss literature was important chiefly during the Middle Ages in religious and humanistic works.

The most important Swiss literature is in German, beginning with the poetry of the minnesingers of the Middle Ages and including popular ballads and chronicles dating from the 14th to the 18th century. Outstanding German-Swiss authors include Gottfried Keller, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Hermann Hesse, Carl Spitteler, Jeremias Gotthelf (pseudonym of Albert Bitzius), Max Frisch, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. One of the best-known French-Swiss authors is Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. Heidi (1880-1881; trans. 1884) by Johanna Spyri, has been a favourite with generations of children all over the world.

A number of Swiss artists have achieved international recognition over the centuries. Chief among them are the painters Conrad Witz, Henry Fuseli, Arnold Böcklin, Ferdinand Hodler, and Paul Klee. The sculptor Alberto Giacometti and the architect Le Corbusier are world renowned.

The Swiss composers Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Loris, called Henricus Glareanus, made important contributions to European music during the Renaissance. Important Swiss composers in recent years have included Ernest Bloch, Arthur Honegger, Othmar Schoeck, Frank Martin, Ernst Levy, and Conrad Beck. The Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet gained worldwide fame as conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, based in Geneva. In the field of folk music, the Swiss are also noted for developing the yodel, a kind of wordless singing with abrupt shifts in pitch.