Suiza

Más allá de la capital, las principales ciudades son Zurich, Geneva, Basel — cada una un centro de cultura regional, economía e historia. Bern, the federal city since 1848, is neither the largest nor wealthiest Swiss city — that distinction belongs to Zurich and Geneva — but its six kilometres of arcaded sandstone walkways, medieval clock tower, and bear park in the river bend preserve a working capital of unusual human scale.

Los principales idiomas hablados son alemán, francés, italiano, Romansh, que reflejan el patrimonio cultural del país y abren puertas a una amplia comunidad internacional. Internacionalmente, Suiza se contacta mediante el código +41. Switzerland's four linguistic communities — German, French, Italian and Romansh — negotiate federal policy through a system of direct democracy in which citizens vote on federal referendums several times a year, producing a population with an unusually detailed civic literacy about policy trade-offs.

Suiza comparte sus fronteras con Francia, Austria, Liechtenstein, Alemania, Italia. El tráfico rodado circula por la derecha, en consonancia con la convención de

La vida económica y cotidiana se rige por la zona horaria de UTC+01:00, alineando el país con sus vecinos regionales.

Roger Federer's 20 Grand Slam titles turned Switzerland, a country with a previous tennis tradition of approximately zero, into a nation that built a new indoor arena in Basel partly to ensure he could play there annually — and his three-set loss to Rafael Nadal in the 2008 Wimbledon final is still discussed as the finest match ever played.

The Swiss Alps contain over 1,800 named glaciers, but the Aletsch Glacier — 23 kilometres long and the largest in the Alps — has receded 3 kilometres since 1870, and its documented retreat has made it a primary case study in the visible measurement of climate change.