Zürich
Zürich
(tsü`rĭkh), canton (1993 pop. 1,158,100), 668 sq mi (1,730 sq km), N Switzerland. The most populous Swiss canton, Zürich is bounded in part by the Lake of Zürich in the south and Germany in the north. It is a fertile agricultural region with orchards, meadows, and forests. Among the rivers that flow through the canton are the Rhine and the Thur. Machinery and other metal goods as well as textiles are manufactured. Its inhabitants are chiefly German-speaking and Protestant. In the canton there are numerous towns and a few industrial cities, notably WinterthurWinterthur, city (1990 est. pop. 85,200), Zürich canton, N Switzerland. An industrial center, it is an important rail junction and has manufactures of railroad equipment (including locomotives and diesel engines) and cotton textiles.
..... Click the link for more information. and the capital, Zürich (1993 pop. 345,200). The largest Swiss city, Zürich is the country's commercial and economic center as well as the intellectual center of German-speaking Switzerland. Its chief manufacture is machinery, and the city supports a healthy tourist trade. It is the hub of a printing and publishing industry, and its international banking and financial institutions are renowned. Zürich hosts many annual international congresses; its airport is the busiest in Switzerland. Occupied as early as the Neolithic period by lake dwellers, the site of Zürich was settled by the Helvetii. It was conquered (58 B.C.) by the Romans, and after the 5th cent. passed successively to the Alemanni, the Franks, and to Swabia. It became a free imperial city after 1218, accepted a corporative constitution in 1336, and joined the Swiss Confederation in 1351. Its claim to the ToggenburgToggenburg
, region in the Thur valley, St. Gall canton, NE Switzerland. Dairying, livestock breeding, and textile production are its main industries, and tourism is significant.
..... Click the link for more information. led to a ruinous war (1436–50) with the other confederates. In the 16th cent. Zürich, under the influence of Ulrich Zwingli, became the leading power of the Swiss Reformation and once more provoked a civil war. The Roman Catholic victory at Kappel (1531) ended Zürich's political leadership. In 1799 the city was the scene of two battles of the French Revolutionary Wars (see Helvetic RepublicHelvetic Republic
, 1798–1803, Swiss state established under French auspices. In Sept., 1797, several exiled Swiss leaders in France (notably Frédéric César de La Harpe) formally urged the French Revolutionary government (the Directory) to help in
..... Click the link for more information. ). Zürich developed as a cultural and scientific center in the 18th and 19th cent. It has the largest Swiss university (founded 1833), a world-famous polytechnic school (est. mid-19th cent.), and many museums. The Romanesque Grossmünster (11th–13th cent.), where Zwingli preached, the Fraumünster (12th and 15th cent.), the 17th-century town hall, and numerous old residences contrast harmoniously with many fine modern structures. The educational reformer Heinrich Pestalozzi was born in the city, and James Joyce is buried there. The city is beautifully situated on the Limmat and Sihl rivers and at the northern end of the Lake of Zürich.
Zürich
a city in Switzerland, located on the Lake of Zürich at the point where it flows into the Limmat River. It is the capital of the canton of Zürich and the country’s most populous city, with 395,800 inhabitants in 1975 (720,800 inhabitants if the suburbs and satellite cities are included). A transportation junction, the city has a harbor and an international airport at Kloten. It is the country’s industrial and trade and financial center. Its machine-building and metalworking industries produce metalcutting, textile, and other machine tools, locomotives and railroad cars, instruments, and electrical-engineering and other industrial equipment. The city is also noted for its chemical, textile, garment, paper, and printing industries.
The right-bank section of Zürich is called the Old, or Large, City. The left-bank, or Little City, is primarily an industrial district. The city’s suburbs stretch along the shores of the Lake of Zürich. The leading institutions of higher learning are the University of Zürich, the Federal Institute of Technology, and the Swiss Institute of International Studies.
The city arose on the site of the Celtic-Germanic settlement of Turicum. First mentioned as a town in 929, it acquired the status of an imperial city in 1218. After an uprising in 1336, the artisans of Zürich gained representation in the city government. In 1351 it joined the Swiss Confederation and became the capital of the canton of Zürich, whose area expanded considerably in the 14th and 15th centuries. In the 16th century Zürich became one of the main centers of the Reformation in Switzerland under the leadership of H. Zwingli. During the religious and political conflicts of the 16th to 18th centuries, culminating in the Kappel Wars of 1529 and 1531 and the Villemergen Wars of 1656 and 1712, Zürich stood at the head of the Protestant cantons. In the second half of the 19th century Zürich became a major banking, industrial, and cultural center. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the city was the home of many revolutionary émigrées, including Russians; V. I. Lenin lived here from February 1916 to March 1917.
Among the city’s architectural masterpieces are the Romanesque-Gothic cathedrals of Gross Münster (12th to 15th centuries) and Frau Münster (13th—14th centuries), the 13th-century Dominican Church (rebuilt in the baroque style in 1611–14), the Gothic Wasserkiche (1479–84, architect H. Felder), and the Renaissance Town Hall (1694–98). There are numerous baroque guild houses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. During the 19th century Zürich acquired many neoclassical and neo-Renaissance buildings, such as the Federal Institute of Technology (1864–71; principal architect, G. Semper). In the 20th century the city has become one of the centers of progressive contemporary Swiss architecture and town planning. The leading museums are the Swiss National Museum (local antiquities, Swiss art before the 19th century), the Kunsthaus (art from the 14th to 20th centuries), and the Kunstgewerbemuseum (artistic crafts).