People of Switzerland

Religion

Switzerland also exhibits considerable religious diversity. However, the distribution of religions does not coincide with that of languages, as the population shifts brought on by industrialization resulted in greater mixture of religions. Roman Catholics slightly outnumber Protestants, and there is a small but significant Muslim population—mainly of Turkish or Balkan origin—and a tiny Jewish community.
The constitution of 1874 guaranteed full religious liberty but repeated the 1848 constitution’s prohibition of settlement by Jesuits (members of the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus) and their affiliated societies. This anti-Jesuit article was repealed in a national referendum in 1973. In 2009 the passage of a referendum to outlaw the construction of minarets (towers that feature in the design of many mosques) highlighted widespread misgivings about the presence of Muslims in Switzerland. The minaret ban had been promoted by the conservative Swiss People’s Party. Although religion has been pivotal in shaping the country, church attendance and religiosity have declined substantially; about two-fifths of Roman Catholics and one-half of Protestants attend church regularly. About one-eighth of Swiss citizens profess no religious affiliation, a figure that increased in the last decades of the 20th century.

Settlement patterns

The diversity of geomorphology, climate, and plant distribution in Switzerland provides a wide variety of settlement sites, a variety further enhanced by the country’s central European location.

Rural communities

Rural settlements predominate in the valleys, where characteristic Alpine villages extend along the base of slopes. Since the creation of extensive river diversions, undertaken chiefly during the second half of the 19th century, many villages (e.g., in the Seeland between Lakes Neuchâtel and Biel) have expanded into valley plains, where intensive farming occurs. The isolation of portions of many valleys—such as those of the Rheinwald, Poschiavo, and Urseren—by barriers of resistant rock or by prehistoric landslides was an impetus to the formation of communes and of the early Alpine cooperatives.
The modern network of small but politically important communes stands out in the parallel relief of the Jura and the Alps, as the boundaries of the communes are generally drawn from one mountain crest to the next. Every commune has all the basic living requirements, including pasture, forest, fertile valley bottom, and water. Terraced slopes characterize the sites of villages that serve as bases for “Alpine nomadism,” the seasonal moving of livestock to or from the mountains. In the latter part of the 20th century, the intensity of this practice declined considerably.
Some villages, such as Guarda in the lower Engadin and Grimentz in the Val d’Anniviers of Valais, are renowned for their picturesque beauty, and others, such as Crans-Montana on the slopes above the Rhône valley in Valais canton and Wengen in the Berner Oberland, have developed into famous resorts. Places such as Bad Ragaz in the Rhine valley and Leukerbad in Valais canton are noted as spas. Valley forks, where the traffic from two valleys combines, were natural sites for settlement. Two of the best examples are Martigny (the Roman city of Octodurum), at the meeting of the Great Saint Bernard Pass route and the Rhône valley, and Chur, a more than 5,000-year-old city located where the Rhine connects with passes to the interior of the canton of Graubünden. In addition, settlements are found within the Alps, such as Amsteg on the St. Gotthard Pass (Uri canton), Silvaplana, where the Julier Pass meets the Inn valley (the upper Engadin), and Gordola, at the junction of the Verzasca valley (Val Verzasca) and the Ticino River plain (near Locarno). In the Mittelland, with its abundant lakes, villages sited on deltas are especially closely related to the environment.