This yearbook includes a series of data from 1920 to 2022: “The focus is on the development of the foreign population, changes in the structure by age, changes in religious affiliation, and changes in the languages spoken in urban Switzerland.”
Half of the population now lives in the 170 cities represented, and almost three-quarters in urban regions and agglomerations. For comparison: a hundred years ago, only a little less than a third of the inhabitants were part of the urban population.
Switzerland has become increasingly urban, and cities are now home to almost 50% of the country’s total population. Around three quarters (73%) of the 8.8 million people living in Switzerland live in 49 urban areas.
Since the 1990s, the proportion of young people aged 0 to 19 has increased slightly in cities, tending to gradually reduce the difference with rural areas. In 2022, young people represent 19.9% of the population permanently resident in Switzerland, and in cities they represent 19.1%.
Over the last 50 years, there has been a general decline in the proportion of young people, with a decrease of 8.4% compared to 1970. Apart from cities in mountain regions such as St. Moritz, Arosa, and Zermatt, it is mainly cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants that record a lower percentage of this age group.
Currently, the proportion of permanently resident foreign nationals is 32% in cities, the national average being 26%. It is observed that 59.5% of people living in Swiss cities declare German as their main language and 22.8% French.
It is striking to note that English has developed strongly and today is the main language of 8.1% of the resident population. In addition, almost a quarter of the urban population (23.1%) speaks another language in addition to the national languages and English.
Detachment from Religion
Since 2000, the proportion of people without religious affiliation has increased sharply. It can be observed in cities that 32.7% of residents declare themselves to be without religion and that there are now cities where none of the traditional religions is in the majority. The population’s detachment from religion has increased over time, particularly since the 1970s.
The decline in religious affiliation has gained momentum since the 1990s. Smaller cities are generally more tied to traditions and have lower percentages of people without religious affiliation, such as the Valais cities of Brigue (7.6%), Visp (9.1%), Sierre (17.7%), and Sion (20.2%).
The downward trend in traditional religions in Swiss cities mainly affects the proportion of people of the Reformed Evangelical religion, which has gradually fallen from 49.4% in the 1970s to 19.3% today (2017–2021).
The Roman Catholic population increased during the post-war period, in parallel with immigration from countries with a Catholic tradition (Italy, Spain, and Portugal). In cities, this rate peaked at 45.0% in the 1970s and has since fallen to 31.5% today.
The largest group of this faith is recorded in the canton of Valais with Brigue-Glis (78.6%), Viège (72.7%), and Zermatt (72.2%), as well as in Ticino with Mendrisio (68.9%) and Chiasso (66.5%).
For the first time, the Swiss City Statistics provide data on Muslim communities or communities of Islamic origin. The Muslim religion is present in roughly identical proportions in each city size category: between 6 and 7% of the resident population. It is observed that it is in Spreitenbach, in the canton of Aargau, that Muslim communities are most represented (21.9%).