Culture of Switzerland Culture of Switzerland Switzerland lies at the crossroads of several major European cultures. Three of the continent's major languages, German, French and Italian, are national languages of Switzerland, along with Romansh, spoken by a small minority. Therefore, Swiss culture is characterized by diversity, which is reflected in a wide range of traditional customs. The 26 cantons also account for the large cultural diversity. Not withstanding the regional disparities, the Alps have played an essential role in shaping the history and culture of Switzerland. The region of the Gotthard Pass became the nucleus of the Swiss Confederacy in the early 14th
Historiography of Switzerland methods, and, following European trends, on the medieval period and the Reformation. The conservative Roman Catholic cantons – who had been defeated in the 1847 Sonderbund war – also received little attention from scholars situated in the liberal Protestant mainstream of the time. The early 20th century saw the publication of great topical histories of Switzerland, including Eugen Huber's legal history ("Geschichte und System des schweizerischen Privatrechts", 1893), Andreas Heusler's constitutional history ("Schweizer Verfassungsgeschichte", 1920; supplanted by Hans Conrad Peyer's "Verfassungsgeschichte" of 1978) and Paul Schweizer's diplomatic history ("Geschichte der schweizerischen Neutralität", 1895; continued by Edgar Bonjour from 1946 on).