Facts and figures about Switzerland
Switzerland (German: Schweiz; French: Suisse; Italian: Svizzera; Romansh: Svizra), the full name of which is the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence the abbreviation CH), is a country in central Europe divided into 26 cantons, while three of them are divided into two half cantons. The federal capital of Switzerland is the city of Bern and its regime is a direct democracy.
The country is multilingual and has four official languages, i.e. French, German, Italian and Romansh (the latter is used by approximately 50,000 people in the canton of Graubünden as their native language). The time zone is Central European Time (CET) or UTC+1 (daylight saving time: UTC+2) and the currency is the Swiss Franc, abbreviated as CHF.
Switzerland’s population nowadays exceeds 7.5 million inhabitants, dispersed over 41,285 square meters of land. The biggest canton is that of Zürich.
The typical souvenir goods from Switzerland that you definitely should not miss are the delicious chocolates, the almost uncountable types of cheese, the quality watches and of course the multi-functional Swiss Army knives.
