Gregory's ServerFor this week's #geoweirdness thread, we head back to Europe - join us as we consider the geographic oddities of Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ
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3/ The country ๐จ๐ญ has 4 official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Hence the ISO code "CH" from the Latin (and thus neutral) *Confoederatio Helvetica*. The language regions are plotted below, highlighting the mountainous topography and population spread. Romansh is estimated to have roughly 50k speakers. Swiss-German has many different regional words, and is **challenging** for speakers of "high" German ๐ฉ๐ช. Swiss-Germans are often subtitled on German television. 4/ Interestingly from a geopolitical perspective, Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ is a Directorial Republic (one of only three in the world, the others being San Marino ๐ธ๐ฒ and Bosnia and Herzegovina ๐ง๐ฆ) A federal cabinet serves as collective head of state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_(Switzerland) 5/ Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ is also somewhat unique in having the concept of a โPlace of Origin". This is a form of municipal citizenship and is often different from place of birth. This causes some confusion worldwide, as Swiss ID cards, passports, and driver's licenses donโt show the birthplace, but only the Place of Origin. 8/ While on the topic of postal systems, we should mention Switzerland's ๐จ๐ญ micro-state neighbor, Liechtenstein ๐ฑ๐ฎ (one of the world's two double-landlocked countries - the other is of course Uzbekistan ๐บ๐ฟ). Liechtenstein uses the Swiss postal service and shares a customs and monetary union with Switzerland, meaning it uses the Swiss franc. Another interesting Liechtenstein fact: it is the only country in the world with German as sole official language. 9/ On the other side of Liechtenstein ๐ฑ๐ฎ we have the Austrian ๐ฆ๐น state of Vorarlberg. Following World War I the region held annexation referendum to join Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ. An overwhelming 80% of voters supported the proposal. Switzerland turned down this, and it never went ahead! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1919_Vorarlberg_annexation_referendum 10/ You might think that as such an old country as Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ has no border disputes, that everything has long since been settled. But actually it does. Switzerland, Austria ๐ฆ๐น, and Germany ๐ฉ๐ช have no formal agreement on the exact course of the border in Lake Constance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Constance#International_borders 11/ The ๐จ๐ญ Switzerland ๐ฉ๐ช Germany border was also the topic last year, when it was decided to change to using the middle of the Rhein rather than the deepest point in the river (which moved over time). The result was Germany gained 8 meters on the historic Bad Sรคckingen wooden bridge 12/ As some of these maps have shown, there is a thriving OpenStreetMap community in Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ, and we had the pleasure of interviewing long-time community member Simon Poole @simon on our blog a few years back to learn more about the Alpine nationโs rich opengeo culture: https://blog.opencagedata.com/post/143061235013/country-profile-openstreetmap-in-switzerland 13/ Final point of Swiss #geoweirdness - As you may have noticed from the emojis in this thread, Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ is one of only two countries of the world with a square flag, the other being the Vatican ๐ป๐ฆ. Nepal ๐ณ๐ต also has a "non-standard" flag shape.  @opencage I wouldn't call that a border dispute, just a difference of opinion on what would be the preferred solution if there were negotiations on the topic. But there are no such negotiations and everybody seems to be perfectly happy with the current state of affairs. PS: and yes it isn't mapped correctly on #OpenStreetMap as there is no tagging for "not actually a border".  @opencage for some more background behind Bรผsingen, @thetimtraveller had a video on it: https://youtu.be/kIe62qN0FEo |
2/ Switzerland ๐จ๐ญ has a beautiful cartographic history that dates back many centuries, most famously involving the mapping of the Alps ๐๏ธ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartography_of_Switzerland
What you may be less familiar with is the tradition of "hiding" secret figures and illustrations in the complex charts.
https://mymodernmet.com/hidden-swiss-map-illustrations/
#geoweirdness