Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's population of 9 million are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts its largest cities and economic centres, including Zürich, Geneva, and Basel.
Since 1848 the Swiss Confederation has been a federal republic of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of federation that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
The canton of Schwyz is a canton in central Switzerland between the Alps in the south, Lake Lucerne to the west and Lake Zürich in the north, centred on and named after the town of Schwyz.
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the Swiss Confederation. The nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the form of the first three confederate allies used to be referred to as the Waldstätte. Two important periods in the development of the Old Swiss Confederacy are summarized by the terms Acht Orte and Dreizehn Orte.
Anna Elisabeth Kopp was a Swiss politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). She was the first woman to serve in the Swiss government, the Federal Council. She held that office from 2 October 1984 to 12 January 1989, when she resigned following a scandal over an alleged breach of official secrecy. She previously served as a member of the National Council from 1979 to 1984.
Rudolf Heinrich Friedrich was a Swiss attorney and politician. He served as a member of the Federal Council (Switzerland) for the Free Democratic Party from 1982 to 1984, where he held the position as Head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police. He resigned from this position due to health reasons. Previously, Friedrich served as a member of the National Council (Switzerland) from 1975 to 1982.
The canton of Schaffhausen, also canton of Schaffhouse, is the northernmost canton of Switzerland. The principal city and capital of the canton is Schaffhausen. The canton's territory is divided into three non-contiguous segments, where German territory reaches the Rhine. The large central part, which includes the capital, in turn separates the German exclave of Büsingen am Hochrhein from the rest of Germany.
The Federal Charter or Letter of Alliance is one of the earliest constitutional documents of Switzerland. A treaty of alliance from 1291 between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, the Charter is one of a series of alliances from which the Old Swiss Confederacy emerged. In the 19th and 20th century, after the establishment of the Swiss federal state, the Charter became the central founding document of Switzerland in the popular imagination.
The Old Swiss Confederacy, also known as Switzerland or the Swiss Confederacy, was a loose confederation of independent small states, initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.
The Society for Art History in Switzerland is a Swiss learned society dedicated to promoting the understanding of Swiss art history and particularly of Swiss topography of art, including the study and maintenance of Swiss cultural heritage sites. The society, founded in 1880, publishes a wide range of monographs, guides, and inventories. These include the series Art monuments of Switzerland, which includes more than one hundred volumes, the first of which was published in 1927. It also publishes the quarterly journal Kunst und Architektur in der Schweiz.
Simonetta Myriam Sommaruga is a Swiss politician who served as a Member of the Swiss Federal Council from 2010 to 2022. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SP/PS), she was President of the Swiss Confederation in 2015 and 2020.
François Couchepin was a Swiss lawyer and politician who served as Chancellor of Switzerland from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the now-defunct Free Democratic Party of Switzerland (FDP/PRD).
Daniel Reuwen Jositsch is a Swiss attorney and politician who currently serves on the Council of States (Switzerland) for the Social Democratic Party representing the Canton of Zürich since 2015. He previously served on the National Council (Switzerland) from 2007 to 2015. He briefly served on the Cantonal Council of Zürich before resigning from the post in the fall of 2007. In 2022 and 2023 he declared candidacy for Federal Council (Switzerland) but both times was not officially nominated by his party.
Petra Christina Antonella Gössi known as Petra Gössi is a Swiss attorney and politician. She currently serves as a member of the National Council for The Liberals since 2011. Previously she served on the Cantonal Council of Schwyz between 2004 and 2011. Since 2006, she has been a member of the management of The Liberals and between 2012 and 2016 was president of her political party.
Elisabeth Blunschy was a Swiss politician. She served as the first woman President of the National Council of Switzerland and was one of the first women elected to the National Council of Switzerland.
Alex Kuprecht is a Swiss politician who was the President of the Council of States from 2020 to 2021. A member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), he has served in the Council of States since 2003, representing the canton of Schwyz. For the 2019–2020 legislative term, Kuprecht was First Vice President of the Council of States under the presidency of Hans Stöckli.
There are 26 constituencies in Switzerland – one for each of the 26 cantons of Switzerland – for the election of the National Council and the Council of States.
Hans-Peter Portmann is a Swiss banking executive and politician. He currently serves as a member of the National Council (Switzerland) for The Liberals since 7 May 2015. Portmann is a member on the foreign policy commission as well as on the federal parliamentary delegation EU/EFTA. Between 1995 and 2014, he served as a member on the Cantonal Council of Zürich.
Dominik Blunschy is a Swiss software engineer and politician who currently is member-elect of the National Council (Switzerland) for The Centre after being elected during the 2023 Swiss federal election. He assumed office on 4 December 2023.
