Zurich (German: Zurich , Swiss German: Züri , Italian: Zurigo ) is a Cité Alémanique of Suisse, the first Ville of the Pays by the number of inhabitants (the 28.05.2007, one counted 412.517 inhabitants; Agglomeration: 1  191  732) and the capital of the Canton of Zurich. If the German is the Official language, the inhabitants of Zurich speak the Suisse German, an alternative of German (as old as it) which tends to contract the words of traditional German, and who borrows certain foreign terms (French, Italian, English…). To note that one counts in the city nearly 5% of italophones. Zurich belongs to the world cities.

Geography

The city is located at the place where the river Limmat leaves the northern end of the Lake Zurich before being joined by the Sihl.

History

Zurich is in the beginning a named Gallo-Roman village Turicum at the border of the Roman Empire and Germanic worlds, a garrison being established on a headland overhanging the river Limat. It thus has a defensive function at the beginning. Destroyed at the 5th century by the Alamans, then rebuilt, Zurich in 1218 became imperial free city, then entered the Swiss Confédération in 1351 and took a great importance there, thanks to the acquisition of many seigniories close and with prosperity to its textile craft industry. Huldrych Zwingli introduced the Réforme in Zurich starting from 1519. The city and the canton were controlled until the liberal revolution of 1830 by a rich person Protestant middle-class; they were democratized gradually in the current of the 19th century. Today, Zurich is the first city of the Confederation by the importance of its population, almost twice more than that of Geneva or Basle.

Policy

Executive

Members of the executive since the elections of February 16th, 2006.

  • Gerold Lauber (PDC)

  • Elmar Lederberger (PS)
  • Kathrin Martelli (PRD)
  • Esther Maurer (PS)
  • Robert Neukomm (PS)
  • Monicka To store (Greens)
  • Andres Türler (PRD)
  • Martin Vollenwyder (PRD)
  • Martin Waser (PS)

Legislature

Many seats per party after the elections of February 12th, 2006.

Economy

The importance of the agglomeration especially holds with the economic, financial and commercial place that it occupies in the country. City which concentrates forty head offices of the hundred more important companies of the country, Zurich is regarded as the economic capital, leaving with Bern the function of political capital. Having only 17  000 inhabitants in 1800, its rise demographic occurred primarily since the industrial and commercial success of the area, with an massive arrival of population starting from the beginning of the 20th century.

It is close to this city also that is the principal airport of the Confederation, preceding the two other airports of the country: Geneva-Cointrin and Basle-Mulhouse-Freiburg.

  • photographs of Zurich

Artistic richness

Zurich is also a high place of the Swiss culture. The city plays a prevalent part as a city avant-gardist at the artistic level, part of its celebrity and her cultural rise coming from the many painters, type-setters and writers who there remained and left their print: James Joyce, Thornton Wilder, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, inter alia. The movement Dada in is also originating: it was born with the Voltaire cabaret in 1916.

This cultural and artistic richness makes of Zurich an important tourist center. The city shelters in particular the Swiss National museum ( Schweizerisches Landesmuseum ), which recalls the history of the country since prehistory (domestic objects, religious art, frescos, weapons, costumes, engravings, goldsmithery, etc) and the Musée of the Art schools ( Kunsthaus ) which gathers an important collection of works of Edvard Munch, Alberto Giacometti and other modern and contemporary artists. With that of Basle, this museum is undoubtedly most important of the country on the level of its richness and its diversity. It is the framework also of temporary exhibitions of great quality.

The city shelters also the Schauspielhaus Zurich, theater of 750 places, famous to have been the only theater in German language of completely free expression during the Second world war. Presence also of an opera, the Opernhaus, and of a concert hall for classical music, the Tonhalle.

Monuments

The church Fraumünster, in the middle of the city, is to be visited for its stained glasses of Marc Chagall and Augusto Giacometti.

Another monument located in the downtown area is the church Grossmünster. Its construction began approximately in 1100 under the order of the emperor Charles III the Large. The last work is completed in 1220. The church was the center of the reform in German-speaking Switzerland under Huldrych Zwingli.

Museums

Demonstrations

Many demonstrations take place throughout the year among which:
  • the Sechseläuten (at the end of April) celebrates the departure of the winter, symbolized by the Böögg (snowman) which is seen incinerated on large to rough-hew in Sechseläutenplatz. The name of this festival comes the hour to which one lights to rough-hew it (18h). The Böögg is filled of explosives and the principal load is placed in the head. The tradition wants that one stop watch the time passed between the lighting of roughing-hew and the explosion of the head. If this time is short, the summer will be hot, if this time is long, long the résitance Böögg predicts of a cold summer.
  • the Street Parade (August) accommodates each year of the hundreds of thousands of amateurs of techno who ravel on tanks along the lake.
  • Knabenschiessen (September) is a big competition of shooting for the young people.
  • Every three years, is held the Zürifäscht, one of largest popular holidays in Switzerland. The event lasts during 3 days, and counts up to 3 million visitors (over 3 days).

Transport

The city has a dense urban network of trams, drunk and Trolleybus as well as network of regional train (S-Bahn). Zurich is also an important rail junction, with in particular the Central station of Zurich and is directly connected to the Aéroport of Kloten by train (12 minutes).

Educational establishments

Sport

External bond

  • Site of Zurich Tourism

  • Gate of the area of Zurich

Be-X-old: Цюрых Simple: Zurich

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