Switzerland

Three landscapes lie side by side in Switzerland, a small, landlocked country. The Alps fill the south and centre with glaciers and peaks above four thousand metres; the Jura, a lower range of folded limestone, follows the French border; and between them the Swiss Plateau holds most of the farms and cities. The Rhine, the Rhône, the Inn and the Ticino all rise in the Swiss Alps, so Swiss water ends up in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea.

The Confederation began as a defensive pact between the valley communities of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden, traditionally dated to 1291. Towns such as Lucerne, Zurich and Bern joined later, and victories over Habsburg and Burgundian armies secured independence in practice. After a brief civil war in 1847, the federal constitution of 1848 created the modern state. Swiss neutrality was recognised in 1815, and the country took no part in either world war. Geneva, where the Red Cross was founded, became a centre of diplomacy.

Power is spread unusually wide: cantons run their own schools, police and taxes, and citizens vote in national referendums several times a year. A train from Zurich to Lausanne crosses what the Swiss call the Röstigraben, the ‘hash-brown ditch’ between German and French speakers. The economy lives from things that are costly to make and easy to export: medicines from Basel, watches from the Jura valleys, machinery, chocolate and cheese, plus banking, insurance and commodity trading.