These are the 172 cities, sorry: “cities”, of Switzerland

Since 2010, three new agglomerations have formed in Switzerland and ten places have become cities. Switzerland will now be divided into 172 cities and 52 agglomerations, the Federal Statistical Office (BfS) reported on Thursday. This means that urbanization continues. But stop! 172 cities in Switzerland? And 52 different agglomerations? Where should they all be?

We first clarify the concept of ‘city’. Or as the BfS writes more precisely: “statistical city”. Previously, all communities with more than 10,000 residents were simply considered cities. But with the municipal mergers – and thus the partial fragmentation of residents in different settlements without a dominant center – this is no longer relevant. Since 2014, other points have also played a role.

This all sounds quite complicated. Perhaps the example here will help you understand the review better.

The statistical cities comprise 49 percent of the population and 65 percent of the employees. No cities have been eliminated since 2010, but ten new ones have been added. These are:

And so these are distributed throughout Switzerland. Only the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden does not have a “statistical city”:

Each agglomeration includes a densely populated urban center, consisting of one or more municipalities and belt municipalities that are functionally connected to this center. Switzerland’s 52 agglomerations are home to 6.6 million people, equivalent to 74 percent of the Swiss population.

Almost half (1034) of the 2131 Swiss municipalities are part of a conurbation. Eleven agglomerations cross borders. The parts of these agglomerations located abroad include 1.5 million inhabitants and 367 municipalities.

The new agglomerations are:

Of the 49 existing agglomerations, thirteen have exactly the same perimeter as in 2010. In the remaining agglomerations, communities have been added or eliminated, but in most of these changes these changes have had little effect on the number of inhabitants. The number of core communities is generally increasing, while that of belt communities is decreasing, indicating an expansion of the densely populated core zones.

Rural communities, which make up 57 percent of the country’s land area, are home to only 14 percent of the population and only 9 percent of workers.

Swiss municipalities can be subdivided using a corresponding typology based on criteria such as density or economic structure. Units with similar characteristics are grouped into categories. According to the updated urban-rural typology, 24 percent of communities are urban, 49 percent rural and 27 percent intermediate.

In urban communities, which account for only 17 percent of the country’s surface area, 65 percent of the population lives and 76 percent of employees work.

The community typology with 9 and 25 categories is based on a three-stage decision tree. For this purpose, the communities are first assigned to one of the three area types with an urban character. They are then divided into 9 and then 25 categories.

These form the two levels of the community typology. While the distinction between the 9 categories is based on density, size and accessibility criteria, additional socio-economic criteria are used for the finer division into 25 categories.

The urban/rural typology is derived from the community typology with 9 categories and is divided into three types: urban, intermediate and rural.