Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is a very small country.

It has big mountains and a wide river valley. The capital is a small town called Vaduz. A prince is the head of the country.

Liechtenstein is a principality, a country whose head of state is a prince. It covers just 160 square kilometers, which makes it one of the smallest countries in Europe. It lies between Switzerland and Austria.

Its capital is Vaduz, a small town on the edge of the Rhine valley. About 41,000 people lived in Liechtenstein at the end of 2025. The country has no army: it abolished its army in 1868. It uses the Swiss franc as its money.

Liechtenstein is a western European principality between Switzerland and Austria, covering 160 km². Its capital is Vaduz, the administrative and commercial center; Schaan is the main industrial community. The Amt für Statistik counted 41,237 permanent residents on December 31, 2025 (preliminary figures), 35.3 percent of them foreign nationals.

It is a constitutional monarchy. The prince inherits the throne through the male line, and a 25-member Landtag (Diet) is elected for four years. The standing army was abolished and neutrality proclaimed in 1868. Liechtenstein adopted the Swiss franc in 1921 and joined a customs union with Switzerland in 1923, and it belongs to the European Free Trade Association and the European Economic Area.

Vaduz is the capital town.

It has museums with paintings and stamps. Above the town, the mountains rise up high. There is no airport in Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein is divided into 11 communes. Vaduz, the capital, is where most visitors go. Its museums include the Liechtenstein National Museum, with objects from early and Roman times, and the Postal Museum, with stamps the country has printed since 1912.

The princes of Liechtenstein have a famous art collection, with paintings by Dutch and Flemish artists of the 1600s. High up on the mountain slopes, the village of Triesenberg was settled by Walser people from Switzerland at the end of the 1200s. There is no airport, but a railway crosses the north.

Liechtenstein has 11 Gemeinden (communes): Vaduz, Balzers, Triesen, Triesenberg, Schaan and Planken in the Upper Country (Oberland) to the south, and Eschen, Mauren, Gamprin, Ruggell and Schellenberg in the Lower Country (Unterland) to the north. The two regions descend from the old lordships of Vaduz and Schellenberg and form separate electoral districts.

Vaduz holds the National Museum (mainly early and Roman artifacts), the Postal Museum (founded 1930, with national stamp issues since 1912) and the princely art collections, rich in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish painting. Britannica reports that the Liechtenstein Treasure Chamber (2015) housed the world's largest Fabergé egg, the princely crown jewels and lunar rocks given by NASA. The country has no airport; the Paris-Vienna rail route passes through the north.

Most of Liechtenstein is mountains.

The tops are covered in snow. Forests and flowers grow on the lower slopes. The Rhine River flows along the west side.

About two-thirds of Liechtenstein, the eastern part, is rugged mountains of the Rhätikon range, part of the Alps. The highest peak, Grauspitz, is 2,599 meters tall. Evergreen forests and Alpine flowers cover the lower slopes, and the bare peaks are covered in snow.

The west is the flat floodplain of the Rhine River. It used to be marshy, but a drainage channel built in the 1930s turned it into rich farmland. A warm wind from the south, called the foehn, keeps the climate mild, so farmers can even grow grapes and corn.

The eastern two-thirds of Liechtenstein are the rugged foothills of the Rhätikon Mountains, part of the central Alps, rising to Grauspitz at 2,599 m; Britannica notes that much of the principality lies above 1,800 m. Three major valleys drain via the Samina River. The western section is the Rhine floodplain, which with the valley of the Ill forms a triangular lowland widening northward; once marshy, it was drained by a channel built in the 1930s.

The climate is mild and strongly affected by the foehn, a warm southerly wind. Precipitation ranges from about 900 to 1,200 mm a year, up to 1,900 mm in parts of the mountains. Winter temperatures rarely fall below −15 °C, and summer daily maximums average about 20 to 28 °C, allowing grapes and corn, unusual in a mountainous area. All forests are protected to keep slopes stable and prevent erosion.

Red deer live in the forests.

Chamois climb on the rocky slopes. Marmots dig burrows in the mountains. Foxes and badgers live there too.

For such a small country, Liechtenstein is rich in wildlife. Red deer and roe deer live in the forests, and chamois, a kind of goat-antelope, climb the mountain slopes. Marmots, foxes, badgers, hares, martens, stoats and weasels live there too.

Birds include pheasants, partridges, hazel grouse and black grouse, called blackcocks. Plants are varied as well: orchids, reeds and bird's-eye primroses all grow there, and the forests mix copper beeches, maples, lindens, elms and ashes.

Britannica describes Liechtenstein as rich in wildlife: red deer, roe deer, chamois, hares, marmots, foxes, badgers, martens, polecats, stoats and weasels among the mammals, and blackcocks (black grouse), pheasants, hazel grouse and partridges among the birds.

Its vegetation is remarkably varied. Water milfoil and mare's-tail, reeds, bulrushes, bird's-eye primrose and orchids all occur, and the forests are mixed woodland of copper beech, common and Norway maple, sycamore, linden, elm and ash. Every forested area is protected to maintain the ecology of the mountain slopes and guard against erosion, and the Alpine slopes are grazed by livestock in summer.

About 41,000 people live in Liechtenstein.

The official language is German. Many people speak their own local way of German. Farmers keep cows and grow corn and potatoes.

German is the official language, but most people speak an Alemannic dialect with its own local words and sounds. In Triesenberg, Walser families, whose ancestors came from Switzerland more than 700 years ago, still speak a very distinctive form of the language. About a third of people living in Liechtenstein are citizens of other countries.

Few people work on farms. The biggest farms keep livestock and make dairy products, and crops include corn, potatoes and cereals. In summer, cattle graze on the Alpine slopes. Many more people work in small factories, banks and tourism.

Ethnic Liechtensteiners, about two-thirds of the population according to Britannica, descend from the Alemanni, who entered the region after 500 CE. German is official, but most people speak an Alemannic dialect, and the Walsers of Triesenberg, settled from the Swiss canton of Valais at the end of the 13th century, keep a distinctive form of it. The statistics office reports that 35.3 percent of permanent residents held foreign citizenship at the end of 2025. About four-fifths of people are Christian.

After World War II, industrialization drew people to the larger communes, though most of the population is still classed as rural. Small firms make precision instruments, pharmaceuticals, electronic equipment and metal goods; farms concentrate on livestock and dairying; and tourism, centered on Vaduz, is a leading sector. Education is compulsory from age 7, and the University of Liechtenstein offers degrees in architecture and business administration.