Regions of Switzerland - Political Divisions and Greater Regions

Political Divisions and Greater Regions

See also: Subdivisions of Switzerland

As a federal state, Switzerland is composed of 26 cantons, which are further divided into districts and municipalities. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848. There are considerable differences between the individual cantons, most particularly in terms of population and geographical area; hence seven larger and more homogeneous regions have been defined. They do not, however, constitute administrative units and are mostly used for statistical and economical purposes.

Regions	Cantons	Regions	Cantons
Northwestern Switzerland	Aargau	Central Switzerland	Lucerne
	Basel-Landschaft		Nidwalden
	Basel-Stadt		Obwalden
Espace Mittelland	Bern		Schwyz
	Fribourg		Uri
	Jura		Zug
	Neuchâtel	Eastern Switzerland	Appenzell Ausserrhoden
	Solothurn		Appenzell Innerrhoden
Lake Geneva	Geneva		Glarus
	Valais		Graubünden
	Vaud		Schaffhausen
Zurich	Zurich		St. Gallen
Ticino	Ticino		Thurgau

Read more about this topic: Regions Of Switzerland

Famous quotes containing the words political, divisions, greater and/or regions:

“The real grounds of difference upon important political questions no longer correspond with party lines.... Politics is no longer the topic of this country. Its important questions are settled... Great minds hereafter are to be employed on other matters.... Government no longer has its ancient importance.... The people’s progress, progress of every sort, no longer depends on government. But enough of politics. Henceforth I am out more than ever.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

“Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)

“Is it impossible not to wonder why a movement which professes concern for the fate of all women has dealt so unkindly, contemptuously, so destructively, with so significant a portion of its sisterhood. Can it be that those who would reorder society perceive as the greater threat not the chauvinism of men or the pernicious attitudes of our culture, but rather the impulse to mother within women themselves?”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)

“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)