Flags and arms of cantons of Switzerland there is overlap; Unterwalden and Solothurn share the same colours, as do Basel and Appenzell, and with the accession of the modern cantons, Valais and Basel-City, and St. Gallen and Thurgau. Of the 26 cantons since 1999 (22 cantons in 1848, accession of Jura in 1979, three half-cantons designated "canton" in 1999): Distinctively, Swiss cantons use square flags. Historically, the number of cantons was: Nidwalden and Obwalden form traditional subdivisions of Unterwalden. Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, as well as Appenzell Inner- and Ausserrhoden, are half cantons, resulting from the division of Basel and Appenzell, respectively. The Swiss Federal Constitution of 1999
Cantons of Switzerland secession of the canton of Jura from Bern in 1979. The areas of the cantons vary from 37 km (canton of Basel-Stadt) to 7,105 km (canton of Grisons); the populations vary from 16,003 (canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden) to 1,487,969 (canton of Zürich). The term "canton", now also used as English term for administrative subdivisions of other countries, originates in French usage in the late 15th century (recorded in Fribourg in 1467), from a word for "edge, corner", at the time the literal translation of Early Modern High German "ort". After 1490, "canton" was increasingly used in French and Italian documents