Brief Review

Demographics

In many ways, immigrants from other countries founded Switzerland. There are still four official languages (German, French, Italian, Romansh) and due to its central location has served as a crossroads for people from widely different cultures. It did not emerge as a unified nation until 1848.

At more than 1,5 million people, foreigners account for about 20 percent of the population. Eighty-seven percent of Switzerland’s permanent resident population are of European origin, two-thirds of whom are nationals of an EU or EFTA member state. The largest group of foreigners are Italian (18.9%), followed by nationals of Serbia and Montenegro (12.3%), Portugal (11.2%) and Germany (11.2%). An increasing number of foreigners come from more distant countries. The proportion of non-European nationals has increased by 7 percentage points since 1980 to reach 13.5% today, according to the Federal Statistical Office.