Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Bern
- Region
- Europe, Western Europe
- Population
- 9,092,436 (2025)
- Area
- 41,290 km²
- Currency
- Swiss franc (CHF)
- Languages
- German, French, Italian, Romansh
- Calling code
- +41
- Internet domain
- .ch
- ISO codes
- CH, CHE, 756
- Time zone
- UTC+1:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- #### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Switzerland covers about 41,290 square kilometres. By area it ranks 137th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Netherlands and a little larger than Bhutan. It shares a land border with 5 neighbours: Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Liechtenstein. It is landlocked, which means it has no sea coast. Its centre lies at about 47° north, 8° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 9.09 million people live in Switzerland (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 99th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.11 percent of the world's people. On average there are 220 people to each square kilometre. About 86 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 84 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: German, French, Italian, Romansh. A person from Switzerland is called Swiss.
Money and economy
The currency is the Swiss franc (code CHF, symbol Fr.). It is also the main currency of Liechtenstein. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 1.04 trillion (2025), which is about US$ 114,769 for each person (2025).
Time
Switzerland uses one time zone, UTC+1:00 (Europe/Zurich). Clocks are moved for daylight saving time in part of the year.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Zürich | 415,367 |
| Geneva | 201,741 |
| Basel | 177,595 |
| Lausanne | 139,111 |
| Bern | 121,631 |
| Winterthur | 111,840 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Europe
Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.