Zurich

Zurich is a big city in Switzerland. Switzerland is a country in Europe with high mountains.

A river flows through Zurich. At one end of the city there is a long lake.

Zurich is the biggest city in Switzerland. The city's statistics office counted 452,421 people living there at the end of 2025, more than at any time before.

The Limmat River flows out of Lake Zurich and right through the old town. Old churches, guild houses and bridges line its banks, and trams glide through the streets.

Zurich is Switzerland's largest city. Statistik Stadt Zürich counted 452,421 residents at the end of 2025, the highest number ever, after growth of 3,757 during the year; 33.9 percent of residents were foreign nationals. The city had about 150,000 people at the start of the 20th century, jumped from 264,000 to 316,000 when neighboring municipalities were merged into it in 1934, and reached 440,180 in 1962. It shrank in the 1970s and 1980s, grew again from the 2000s, and passed its 1962 record at the end of 2022.

The office also reports that births fell sharply between 2021 (5,261) and 2022 (4,538), the steepest drop in the 130 years since the city first absorbed its neighbors, and have since stabilized at the lower level.

One church tower has a giant clock. Its face is almost 9 meters wide!

Another old church has windows of bright colored glass.

The photo shows two old churches beside the Limmat. On the left is the Fraumünster, with its tall green spire, founded in 853. Its windows of colored glass were made by the artists Marc Chagall and Augusto Giacometti. On the right rises the tower of St. Peter, the oldest parish church in Zurich. Its clock face is 8.7 meters across, which Zurich Tourism calls the largest church clock face in Europe.

Up on the Lindenhof, a hill in the old town, people look out over the rooftops, the river and the university.

The photo frames, from left, the Fraumünster, the Zunfthaus zur Meisen (a guild house), the Münsterbrücke across the Limmat and the tower of St. Peter. The Fraumünster's north window is by Augusto Giacometti, and the five windows in the chancel and the rose window in the south transept by Marc Chagall; its cloister has frescoes by Paul Bodmer.

St. Peter, which Zurich Tourism calls the city's oldest parish church, has a tower clock face 8.7 m in diameter, presented as the largest church clock face in Europe; until 1911 its tower served as a fire watch post. Nearby, the Lindenhof square looks across to the Old Town, the Grossmünster, the City Hall, the Limmat, the university and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).

Zurich has lots of trams. Trains go to towns all around the city.

Boats sail on the lake. A train climbs up a hill!

Zurich has a large tram network, about 86 kilometers long with 15 lines. In 1973 the city's voters decided not to build an underground metro. Part of a tunnel already built for it has carried trams since 1986.

S-Bahn trains, started in 1990, connect Zurich with towns all around. Boats sail on Lake Zurich, and a train called the S10 climbs the Uetliberg hill, where you can look out over the city and the lake.

UrbanRail.Net describes a fully integrated network: about 86 km of tram routes on 15 lines (2 km underground), an S-Bahn introduced in 1990 that now labels all of the canton's rail lines, about 380 km, plus two funiculars, a rack railway, six trolleybus lines and boat services on Lake Zurich.

In the early 1970s Zurich planned a full U-Bahn, but voters rejected it in a 1973 referendum; a tunnel already built with a motorway was linked to the tram network in 1986. Recent extensions include the Glattalbahn to the airport (2008) and the Limmattalbahn to the west, opened in full on 11 December 2022. The private SZU's S10 line climbs the Uetliberg, which offers a view over the city and the lake.

On a hill in the old town, people meet to play chess.

In summer, people swim in the lake and ride on boats.

In the middle of the old town, the Lindenhof is a quiet square on a hill, where chess players meet and visitors look out over the river.

Zurich is home to people from many countries: at the end of 2025, about one in three residents had a foreign nationality. In summer, Lake Zurich is busy with swimmers at lakeside baths, sailboats and steamboats, and in a summer event up to 10,000 people swim across the lake.

Zurich Tourism describes the Lindenhof as a haven of calm in the heart of the city and a meeting point for chess players, with a view across the Limmat to the Old Town, the Grossmünster, the City Hall, the university and ETH.

The city's population has long been international. Statistik Stadt Zürich reports that the share of foreign residents was 34.2 percent in 1912, fell to 6.8 percent by 1945, and has risen again since, reaching 33.9 percent at the end of 2025. Zurich Tourism notes that Lake Zurich, once mainly a transport route, is now a place for swimming, sailing and picnics: lakeside baths at Wollishofen, Mythenquai, Enge, Utoquai and Tiefenbrunnen fill in summer, the Lake Zurich Navigation Company runs steamboats and motor vessels, and in the summer 'Seeüberquerung' up to 10,000 people swim from Wollishofen to Tiefenbrunnen.