Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a country in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The sovereign state is a federal republic situated in western, central and southern Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning a total area of (land area ). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the
Switzerland in the Napoleonic era cantons with equal rights. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 fully re-established Swiss independence and the European powers agreed to permanently recognise Swiss neutrality. At this time, the territory of Switzerland was increased for the last time, by the new cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva. The Restoration, the time leading up to the "Sonderbundskrieg", was marked with turmoil, and the rural population struggling against the yoke of the urban centres, for example in the Züriputsch of 1839. During the last years of the Ancien Régime, the growing conflicts throughout the Confederation (aristocratic cities against peasant farmers, Protestant against Catholic,