Switzerland
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Schweizerische Eidtgenossenschaft— Confédération Suisse— Confederazione Svizzera 1 (Swiss Confederation) Capital: Berne Population projection, 2020: 8·65m. GNI per capita, 2014: (PPP$) 56,431 HDI/world rank, 2014: 0·930/3 Internet domain extension: .ch KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS Neolithic settlements from around 3,000 BC have been found. Celtic clans settled in fertile valleys in parts of present-day Switzerland from around 1,500 BC, with the Raetians in the east and the Helvetti to the west. A Bronze Age Celtic civilization reached its height around 100 BC. An attempt by the Helvetti to spread west into Gaul was quashed by Julius Caesar in 58 BC. As the Roman Empire expanded northward and westward, Switzerland came under its domain, centred on Aventicum (Avenches). The Romans constructed a road network from the strategically important Alpine passes but attempts to conquer Germanic tribes to the north and east of the Rhine were thwarted in 9 AD. Garrisons along the Rhine from Lake Constance to Basle were maintained until Roman forces withdrew in 401. The Germanic Alemanni tribe became dominant in northern and central Switzerland as Rome’s influence declined, while Latinspeaking Burgundians held sway in the Jura mountains. Celtic tribes were gradually subsumed over the following centuries. Frankish rulers established monasteries, enabling the spread of Christianity and feudalism throughout west-central Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries. Following the signing of the Treaty of Verdun in 840 western and southwest Switzerland came under the jurisdiction of the Burgundian king, Lothair I, and the north and east formed part of the domain of Louis the German. The Burgundian lands became part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1033, while various independent dukedoms emerged in the north and east, notably Swabia, Zahringen, Savoy and Kyberg. The Kyberg domains of central Switzerland passed to the Habsburgs in 1264. The expansion of this dynasty led to three mountain-based clans—the Uri, the Schwyz and the Unterwalden—forming a
defensive league. Their agreement, renewed in 1291, is considered the founding document of the Swiss nation. The league defeated the Habsburgs at Mortgarten in 1315 and by 1353 the confederation had added the cantons of Glarus and Zug and the city states of Lucerne, Zürich and Berne, forming the ‘Old Federation’ of eight states within the Holy Roman Empire. Defeat at the hands of French forces at Marignano in 1515 led the Swiss confederation to form a ‘perpetual alliance’ with France and marked the start of a neutral stance. Relations between the cantons deteriorated in the 16th century and during the Reformation, when the city-states of Zürich, Berne, Basle and St Gallen adopted Protestantism while Catholicism was retained in the four forest cantons. The 1531 Treaty of Kappel ended the civil war and preserved Catholicism in the rural south, though religious tensions continued in the late 16th century with the rural cantons and city states linked only by neutrality in the Thirty Years War. The War’s end
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