Swiss people
Citizens of Switzerland, people of Swiss ancestry / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Swiss people (German: die Schweizer, French: les Suisses, Italian: gli Svizzeri, Romansh: ils Svizzers) are the citizens of the multi-ethnic Swiss Confederation (Switzerland) regardless of ethno-cultural background[lower-alpha 2] or people of self-identified Swiss ancestry.
Parts of this article (those related to Swiss abroad in infobox) need to be updated. The reason given is: Source Auslandschweizerstatistik is from 2016, besides there seems to be some vandalism in the infobox since several figures don't match. (February 2024) |
The number of Swiss nationals has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 8.7 million in 2020. More than 1.5 million Swiss citizens hold multiple citizenship.[6] About 11% of citizens live abroad (0.8 million, of whom 0.6 million hold multiple citizenship). About 60% of those living abroad reside in the European Union (0.46 million). The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside Europe are found in the United States, Brazil and Canada.
Although the modern state of Switzerland originated in 1848, the period of romantic nationalism, it is not a nation-state, and the Swiss are not a single ethnic group, but rather are a confederacy (Eidgenossenschaft) or Willensnation ("nation of will", "nation by choice", that is, a consociational state), a term coined in conscious contrast to "nation" in the conventionally linguistic or ethnic sense of the term.
The demonym Swiss (formerly in English also called Switzer) and the name of Switzerland, ultimately derive from the toponym Schwyz, have been in widespread use to refer to the Old Swiss Confederacy since the 16th century.[7]