During World War I and World War II, Switzerland maintained a stance of armed neutrality, and apart from minor skirmishes was not involved militarily. Because of its neutral status, Switzerland was of considerable interest to the warring parties, as a scene for diplomacy, espionage, commerce, and as a safe haven for refugees.
During World War I, Switzerland was situated between the Central Powers to the north and east, and the Entente Powers to the south and west. During World War II, Switzerland was entirely surrounded by the Axis Powers from 1940 to 1944.
Women were granted the right to vote in the first Swiss cantons in 1959, at the federal level in 1971[1] and, after resistance, in the last canton Appenzell Innerrhoden in 1990. After suffrage at the federal level women quickly rose in political significance, with the first woman on the seven-member Federal Council executive being Elisabeth Kopp who served from 1984 to 1989. The first female president was Ruth Dreifuss, elected in 1998 to become president during 1999. The Swiss president is elected every year from those among the seven member high council and cannot serve two consecutive terms.
The Demographics of Switzerland has changed in similar ways as in other states in Western Europe. Since 1945, the population of Switzerland has grown from roughly 4.5 to 7.5 million, mostly between 1945 and 1970, with a brief negative growth in the late 1970s, and a population growth hovering around 0.5% per year since the 1990s, mostly due to immigration. With a population composed of a roughly balanced combination of Roman Catholics and Protestants, together amounting to more than 95%, the population without any religious affiliation has grown to more than 10% in the 2000s, while the Muslim population grew from practically nil to some 4% over the past decades. Italians had been the largest group of resident foreigners since the 1920, but with the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, large-scale immigration of refugees has changed this picture, and residents with origins in the former Yugoslavia now constitute the largest group of resident foreigners, with some 200,000 people (roughly 3% of the population).
With the exception of Liechtenstein, Switzerland has been completely surrounded by the European Union since 1995. Swiss-EU relations are a major issue in the country.
In February 2014, Swiss voters approved a referendum to reinstitute quotas on immigration to Switzerland, setting off a period of finding an implementation that would not violate the EU's freedom of movement accords that Switzerland adopted.
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country at the confluence of Western, Central and Southern Europe. The country is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. Switzerland is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. It is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi) and land area of 39,997 km2 (15,443 sq mi). Although the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8.5 million is concentrated mostly on the plateau, where the largest cities and economic centres are, among them Zürich, Geneva and Basel. These three cities are home to several offices of international organisations such as the WTO, the WHO, the ILO, the headquarters of FIFA, the UN's second-largest office, as well as the main office of the Bank for International Settlements. The main international airports of Switzerland are also located in these cities.
Since 1848 the Swiss Confederation has been a federal republic of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of confederacy that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
Switzerland is a semi-direct democratic federal republic. Since 2011 the leading parties are from the right wing. The federal legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Federal Assembly, the National Council and the Council of States. The Federal Council holds the executive power and is composed of seven power-sharing Federal Councillors elected by the Federal Assembly. The judicial branch is headed by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, whose judges are elected by the Federal Assembly.
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.
The Republic and Canton of Jura, less formally the Canton of Jura or Canton Jura, is the newest of the 26 Swiss cantons, located in the northwestern part of Switzerland. The capital is Delémont. It shares borders with the canton of Basel-Landschaft, the canton of Bern, the canton of Neuchatel, the canton of Solothurn, and the French régions of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Grand Est.
The Swiss People's Party, also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre, is a national-conservative, right-wing populist political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Marco Chiesa, it is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 53 members of the National Council and 6 of the Council of States.
The rise of Switzerland as a federal state began on 12 September 1848, with the creation of a federal constitution in response to a 27-day civil war, the Sonderbundskrieg. The constitution, which was heavily influenced by the United States Constitution and the ideas of the French Revolution, was modified several times during the following decades and wholly replaced in 1999. The 1848 constitution represented the first time, other than when the short-lived Helvetic Republic had been imposed, that the Swiss had a central government instead of being simply a collection of autonomous cantons bound by treaties.
Same-sex marriage in Switzerland will be legal from 1 July 2022. Legislation to open marriage to same-sex couples passed the Swiss Parliament in December 2020. The law was challenged in a referendum on 26 September 2021 by opponents of same-sex marriage and was approved with the support of 64.1% of voters. The law will go into force on 1 July. Same-sex marriages performed abroad have been recognised in Switzerland since 1 January 2022.
Islam in Switzerland has mostly arrived via immigration since the late 20th century. Numbering below 1% of total population in 1980, the fraction of Muslims in the population of permanent residents in Switzerland has quintupled in thirty years, estimated at just above 5% as of 2013. A majority is from Former Yugoslavia ; an additional 20% is from Turkey. This is due to the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s Switzerland encouraged young men from Yugoslavia and Turkey to come as guest workers. Initially these young men were only planning on staying in Switzerland temporarily, however, revised Swiss immigration laws in the 1970s permitted family regrouping. Consequently, these men ended up staying in Switzerland as these new laws allowed the wives and children of these young men into the country. Since this time period, most of the Muslim immigration to Switzerland stems from asylum seekers arriving primarily from Eastern Europe.
The Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of 18 April 1999 is the third and current federal constitution of Switzerland. It establishes the Swiss Confederation as a federal republic of 26 cantons (states). The document contains a catalogue of individual and popular rights, delineates the responsibilities of the cantons and the Confederation and establishes the federal authorities of government.
Voting in Switzerland is the process by which Swiss citizens make decisions about governance and elect officials. The history of voting rights in Switzerland mirrors the complexity of the nation itself. The polling stations are opened on Saturdays and Sunday mornings but most people vote by post in advance. At noon on Sunday, voting ends and the results are usually known during the afternoon.
The Swiss people are the citizens of Switzerland or people of Swiss ancestry.
Religion in Switzerland is predominantly Christianity, which, according to the national survey of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, in 2020 was adhered to by 61.2% of the Swiss people, of whom 33.8% were Catholics, 21.8% were Swiss Protestants, and 5.6% were followers of other Christian denominations. The proportion of Christians has declined significantly since 1980, when they constituted about 94% of the population; during the same timespan, irreligious Swiss have grown from about 4% to 31% of the population, and people professing non-Christian religions have grown from about 1% to 7% of the population. In 2020, according to church registers, 35.2% of the population were registered members of the country's Catholic Church, while 23.3% were registered members of the Protestant Church of Switzerland.
Five referendums were held in Switzerland during 2005. The first two were held on 5 June on Switzerland joining the Schengen Area and whether registered partnerships for same-sex couples should be introduced. Both questions were approved. The third was held on 25 September on a federal resolution on extending the agreement on free movement of people to new members of the European Union, and was also approved. The final two were held on 27 November on a popular initiative "for food from an agriculture free of genetic modification" and on a labour law related to the opening times of shops in public transport hubs. Both were approved.
There has been significant immigration to Switzerland since the 1960s. By contrast, during the 19th century, emigration from Switzerland was more common, as Switzerland was economically a poor country where a large fraction of population survived on subsistence farming.
The territorial evolution of Switzerland occurred primarily with the acquisition of territory by the historical cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy and its close associates. This gradual expansion took place in two phases, the growth from the medieval Founding Cantions to the "Eight Cantons" during 1332–1353, and the expansion to the "Thirteen Cantons" of the Reformation period during 1481–1513.
Nine referendums were held in Switzerland during 1996. The first five were held on 10 March on revising article 116 of the Swiss Federal Constitution regarding language, abolishing the cantons' responsibilities for providing army equipment, abolishing the federal requirement to purchase distilling equipment, abolishing federal financing of parking areas at rail stations, and whether municipality of Vellerat should become part of the canton of Jura. All proposals except the one regarding army equipment were approved.
Twelve national referendums were held in Switzerland during 2014.
In Switzerland, the federal popular initiative "against mass immigration" was a referendum that aimed to limit immigration through quotas, as it had been prior to the bilateral treaties between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) launched 2002.
The right of foreigners to vote in Switzerland is an ongoing political issue in the country. Switzerland is a federal nation. As such, the cantons have extensive powers to enact their own legislation. For this reason, the rules regarding the rights of foreign residents to vote differ considerably throughout Switzerland.
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