The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh. German, French, and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation, while Romansh is used in dealings with people who speak it. Latin is occasionally used in some formal contexts, particularly to denote the country.
A stamp catalog is a catalog of postage stamp types with descriptions and prices.
Helvetia is the female national personification of Switzerland, officially Confoederatio Helvetica, the Swiss Confederation.
Human rights are largely respected in Switzerland, one of Europe's oldest democracies. Switzerland is often at or near the top in international rankings of civil liberties and political rights observance. Switzerland places human rights at the core of the nation's value system, as represented in its Federal Constitution. As described in its FDFA's Foreign Policy Strategy 2016-2019, the promotion of peace, mutual respect, equality and non-discrimination are central to the country's foreign relations.
A semi-postal stamp or semipostal stamp, also known as a charity stamp, is a postage stamp issued to raise money for a particular purpose and sold at a premium over the postal value. Typically the stamp shows two denominations separated by a plus sign, but in many cases the only denomination shown is for the postage rate, and the postal customer simply pays the higher price when purchasing the stamps.
David Feldman MA. BBS, RDP(I).FRPSL is a professional philatelist, auctioneer, art specialist and author. He held his first stamp auction in 1967. Feldman is Honorary Chairman of David Feldman SA, a Geneva-based auction company, through which he attained record prices for some of the world's most famous postage stamps. In 1993, Feldman auctioned the "Bordeaux Cover", which comprised the 1847 1d Orange-red and the 2d Deep Blue Mauritius "Post Office" stamps, which brought 6,175,000 Swiss francs including all commissions, at that time the highest price ever paid for any philatelic item. He also sold the unique 1855 Sweden Treskilling Yellow stamp at auction in 1996, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a single stamp, for which he was pictured in the Guinness Book of Records. That record was eclipsed in 2014 by the sale of the British Guiana 1c magenta.
Ivo Heuberger is a retired tennis player who represented Switzerland at the Davis Cup.
Jörg Kühn (1940–1964) was a Swiss artist, naturalist and scientific illustrator who specialized in bird paintings and drawings. He was also a children's book illustrator. He is noted for illustrations that are of a particularly scientific and exact nature.
Anneliese Heard is a Welsh triathlete from Bassaleg near Newport, Wales.
Anne Marie Trechslin was a Swiss painter, wood engraver, draftsperson and illustrator.
Pro Patria, officially Stiftung PRO PATRIA Schweizerische Bundesfeierspende, is a Swiss patriotic and charitable organization. Its purpose is to give meaning to the Swiss national holiday, August 1, by collecting donations to the benefit of social and cultural works of national public interest.
Pro Natura, founded in 1909 in Basel as Swiss League for the Protection of Nature, is the oldest environmental organisation in Switzerland.
Das Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse, more commonly known as Kinder der Landstrasse, was a project implemented by the Swiss foundation Pro Juventute from 1926 to 1973. The project aimed to assimilate the itinerant Yenish people in Switzerland by forcibly removing their children from their parents and placing them in orphanages or foster homes. Approximately 590 children were affected by this program.
Children of the Open Road is a Swiss feature/drama film that was produced in 1992. Its topic is the Kinder der Landstrasse foundation, active between 1926 and 1973, which controversially attempted to assimilate the itinerant Yeniche population of Switzerland by forcibly moving their children to foster homes or orphanages. The historical topic is presented in fictionalized account.
Beobachter (Observer), also known by its former name Der Schweizerische Beobachter, is a German-language Swiss magazine. Published in Zürich, its 26 issues a year focus on consumer, health and political content.
The Swiss children coercion reparation initiative was a Swiss federal popular initiative to change the federal constitution, which was launched in April 2014.
Child labour in Switzerland was a fact in rural areas to the 1960s, at least tolerated by the Swiss authorities referring to the so-called Verdingkinder, as up to 100,000 children were needed as cheap workers mostly on farms the decades before.
Mentona Moser was a Swiss social worker, communist functionary and writer. Born into wealth, she disapproved of high society, and became involved in philanthropic work, helping to launch the Swiss Communist Party and one of the first birth control clinics in Zürich.
Karl Bickel (1886–1982) was a Swiss engraver and graphic designer also known for the construction of the Paxmal memorial above Walenstadt. During his career he designed one hundred Swiss stamps but also others for the countries Luxemburg, Portugal and Liechtenstein.
