Swiss Cantons

The 26 Swiss cantons are the Sovereign states of the Swiss Confédération. The 26 cantons have each one their clean Constitution, Parliament, government and courts. Six of them were considered until there is little like demicantons : Nidwald, Obwald, Appenzell Rhodos-Interior, Appenzell Rhodos-External, Basle-City and Basle-Countryside. Currently, these 6 entities are States with whole share and are named cantons , although they have always only one seat instead of two with the Conseil of the States and that they count only for half in calculation of the majority of the cantons at the time of the federal Votation S.

The Abréviation S of two letters used for the Swiss cantons are largely used. For example it are used with the number plates and the code ISO 3166-2 with the prefix “CH” (ex: CH-SZ for the Canton of Schwytz).

List Swiss cantons

Evolution

The Swiss Confederation was built by progressive alliances and conquests through the centuries.

Three primitive cantons:

  • 1291 - Uri, Schwytz, and both demicantons of Obwald and Nidwald gathered under the generic name of Unterwald.

The Confederation of the VIII cantons:

The Confederation of the XIII cantons:

  • 1481 - Freiburg, Soleure
  • 1501 - Basle (separate in 1833 in two demicantons, Basle-City and Basle-Countryside), Schaffhouse
  • 1513 - Appenzell (separate for religious reasons in 1597 in two demicantons, Rhodos-Interior Appenzell Rhodos-External and Appenzell)

The Swiss République (1798-1803) saw the arbitrary recutting of the old cantons. Dissatisfaction was such as Bonaparte establishes the Acte of Mediation in 1803, restoring the old communities in their broad outlines, but creating new cantons:

The Swiss modern:

Fifth Switzerland

See also: Fifth Switzerland

The term of Fifth Switzerland is in particular used at the time of comments after votings or elections to indicate the Swiss ones from abroad. More than six hundred and thousand expatriates are listed. Among those, 70% have a dual nationality

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