Everything you need to know about Switzerland
Follow Switzerland from the cities of the Central Plateau into the Alps and Italian-speaking Ticino. Explore the cantons and waters, discover the history and everyday life behind the places, then practise German, French or Italian. The German lessons use Standard German. Swiss German dialects and Romansh are explained in the reading.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Switzerland
Alpine valleys and busy plateau cities connect a landlocked country with five neighbours.
Know the shape of the country
Start with all 26 cantons, then place twenty cities and towns and explore eight selected lakes and rivers. Zoom in to separate the smaller cantons around Basel and Appenzell. Map boundaries and water geometry: Natural Earth, public domain. City coordinates are curated.
Places worth visiting
Essential · Mountain
Matterhorn
The pyramid peak rises above Zermatt. Ride the Gornergrat railway for the classic view.
See the great peaks of the Alps by train and cable car, then add the lakeside cities and the warmer Italian-speaking south. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take German with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Switzerland, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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