Land of Switzerland

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Land of Switzerland

Switzerland is bordered to the west by France, to the north by Germany, to the east by Austria and Liechtenstein, and to the south by Italy. It extends about 135 miles (220 km) from north to south and 220 miles (350 km) at its widest extent from west to east. Switzerland’s landscape is among the world’s most unusual, and it has long had to contend with a variety of environmental problems that threaten its integrity. Economic development and high population density have caused severe environmental stress, resulting in pollution and debates over the use of natural resources. During the 1970s and ’80s, ambitious environmental policies were implemented by the cantons and municipalities, and this led to impressive progress on pollution abatement. For example, air-pollution emissions in Switzerland are among the lowest in industrialized countries.

• Relief and drainage

Situated at the hydrographic centre of Europe, Switzerland is the source of many major rivers. The two most important are the Rhône, which flows into the Mediterranean Sea, and the Rhine, which empties into the North Sea. Switzerland’s small area contains an unusual diversity of topographic elements, which are divisible into three distinct regions: the Jura Mountains in the northwest, the Alps to the south and east, and the Mittelland, or central plateau, between the two mountain ranges.

The Jura (Celtic: “Forest”), a rolling mountain range in the northwest, occupies about one-eighth of the country. The region was formed under the extended impact of the general Alpine folding, which created the folded Jura that abuts the Mittelland and the tabular plateau Jura that forms the northern edge of the range. Jurassic limestone and marl with rich fossil content are the characteristic rocks that dip below the Mittelland and appear again in the pre-Alps. The limestone has been eroded in typical karst fashion, with sinkholes, caves, and underground drainage common. The ridges, covered with meadows and only sparsely forested, receive more precipitation than do the valleys, the slopes of which are wooded. Between Saint-Imier Valley (Vallon St. Imier) and the Doubs, a river that forms part of the border with France, the Jura has been reduced by denudation to form an undulating plateau that extends into France. Known as the Franches Montagnes (French: “Free Mountains”), a name acquired in 1384 when the bishop of Basel freed the inhabitants from taxation to encourage settlement of the remote area, this tableland is characterized by mixed agriculture and dairying. The highest point in the Jura, Monte Tendre, at about 5,500 feet (1,700 metres), is well below the Alps; indeed, the Jura was not a significant barrier to surface movement even before modern railroads and highways were constructed. Entrenched transverse valleys known as cluses have been eroded across the Jura ridges, providing relatively easy routes for transportation. The climate of the Jura, which has abundant precipitation, is the most continental of Switzerland; cross-country skiing is popular during the long winters. Switzerland’s watchmaking industry had its beginning in these mountains.

The Alps were built of large complexes of massed overthrusts of extremely varied sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks that were shaped by glaciation. The canton of Valais contains many striking Alpine peaks, including the Dufourspitze on the Monte Rosa massif, at 15,203 feet (4,634 metres) the highest point in Switzerland; the Weisshorn (14,780 feet [4,405 metres]), overlooking the valley called the Mattertal; the Dom (14,912 feet [4,545 metres]), above the village of Saas Fee; and the ice-sculpted Matterhorn (14,691 feet [4,478 metres]), long a symbol of Switzerland. The northern and southern Swiss Alps are separated by the trough formed by the Rhône and upper Rhine valleys, the narrowest portion being the Urseren valley, which lies between two crystalline central massifs, the Gotthard and the Aare.

The Alps’ role as the European watershed is most apparent in the central Alpine region of Switzerland, where the different chains meet; from there the Rhône River flows west, the Rhine River east, the Ticino River south to the Po River, and the Reuss River north to the Aare. The fundamental Alpine source point, however, is located in the upper Engadin valley at the Piz Lunghin, from which streams flow toward the North and Adriatic seas and from which the headwaters of the Inn River flow toward the Danube and ultimately into the Black Sea.

The country’s geographically destined role as guardian of Europe’s natural trans-Alpine routes has been both a reason for and a basic tenet of its existence—a role expressed in its traditional neutrality in times of war. In the central Alpine region lies the Saint Gotthard route, the first and shortest north-south passage through the mountains and an important European linkage; it was opened in the early 13th century with the construction of a bridge in the Schöllenen Gorge, which traverses the northern chain, while the southern range is crossed by the Saint Gotthard Pass at an elevation of 6,916 feet (2,108 metres). The 9-mile (14-km) Saint Gotthard rail tunnel through the pass was opened in 1882; a twin 10.5-mile (17-km) road tunnel was opened in 1980. Despite the tunnels, increasing rail and highway traffic often results in long delays through the mountains. For example, on weekends during the peak summer tourist season, cars and trucks are often backed up some 10 to 15 miles (16 to 25 km).

Between the Jura and main Alpine ranges lies the hilly Mittelland, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the country and enclosed by the two mountain ranges and the two largest lakes, Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) in the west and Lake Constance (Bodensee) in the east. The fertile rolling land of the Mittelland is the agricultural heartland of the country and is where the majority of Swiss settlements, population, and industry are situated. Furthermore, vital east-west highway and rail routes bind the urban areas. As a result, the Mittelland is highly urbanized, with large chunks of land sterilized by shopping centres, housing estates, motorways, oil-storage tanks, container depots, warehouses, automobile distribution centres, and industrial complexes.

• Soils

Soil conditions and agriculture reflect the diversity of Switzerland’s climate and geologic structure. The major soil groups consist of gray-brown podzolic soils and brown forest soils, loess, glacial drift, and alluvium in the Mittelland; brown forest soils, rendzinas, and the heavier glacial clays in the Jura valleys; and the lithosol and podzolized soils of the high Alps.

• Climate

Four major European climates affect Switzerland. From the west, influenced by the North Atlantic Drift, come mild and moist air masses; dry and cold air arrives from the North Arctic areas; continental air from the east brings dry colder air in winter and warmer air in summer; and relatively moist and warm air flows northward from the Mediterranean. The mixing of these air masses over Switzerland produces weather patterns that not only change according to which air masses are involved but also are characterized by great variation in temperature and precipitation because of local relief.

• WIND SYSTEMS

Prevailing winds are mainly from the west, but in valleys air currents are channeled into particularly frequent or violent local winds such as the Bise, a cold northeast wind that sweeps across the Mittelland and funnels down Lake Geneva to the city of Geneva. Foehn (German: Föhn) winds, which are associated with the leading edge of a low-pressure system moving across Europe north of Switzerland, often blow for one or two days; though they may occur anytime during the year, they are most frequent in spring. Sudden temperature increases occur because the foehn, which crosses the Alps from south to north (it can also blow from north to south, affecting Ticino), cools at a slower rate rising over the mountains because of precipitation; it is then heated and dried as it descends down the northern valleys, thereby moderating the climate on the northern slopes of the Alps.

• PRECIPITATION

Since rainfall tends to increase in direct proportion to altitude, precipitation varies according to relief. Thus, because of the marked variation in relief that characterizes Switzerland, differences in precipitation within short linear distances are often very great. For example, Sankt Gallen (St. Gall), at 2,556 feet (779 metres), has an average annual precipitation of about 50 inches (1,300 mm), while precipitation at Säntis, at an elevation of 8,202 feet (2,500 metres) but only some 12 miles (20 km) away, is more than 110 inches (2,800 mm). The average annual precipitation of three-fourths of the country exceeds 40 inches (1,000 mm), varying amounts of which fall as snow. In Lugano (at 896 feet [273 metres]), which is located in the canton of Ticino in the southeast and has a modified Mediterranean climate, little precipitation is in the form of snow; in Zürich (at 1,824 feet [556 metres]) about one-tenth is snow; and on the Säntis nearly three-fourths is snow. At elevations above 11,500 feet (3,500 metres), all precipitation is in the form of snow, which compacts into perpetual snowfields and glaciers; the snow line is at about 9,200 feet (2,800 metres) in the northern Alps and about 10,800 feet (3,300 metres) in the southern Alps of the Valais.

• DRY AREAS

There are distinct dry pockets in the mountains of Switzerland’s interior. The best-known dry area is the Rhône valley in the Valais, which is closely encircled by the highest (13,000 feet [4,000 metres]) mountain groups. Although precipitation is slight on the slopes near the cantonal capital of Sion (at 1,581 feet [482 metres]), extensive irrigation is possible, since the valley is surrounded by large snowfields and by glaciers that extend down the upper valleys. The rarefied and dry though somewhat polluted air of such high-altitude towns as Davos (5,216 feet [1,590 metres]) and Arosa (5,987 feet [1,825 metres]) permits a more intense, broader-spectrum solar irradiation and thus produces a climate famous in the past for tuberculosis cures. Today the climate attracts skiers as well as tourists seeking an escape from the polluted air of lowland Europe. At elevations of 13,000 feet (4,000 metres), precipitation levels rise to some 160 inches (4,000 mm), and the Mönch (13,448 feet [4,099 metres]) in the Jungfrau group of mountains has the highest average annual precipitation in Switzerland, 163 inches (4,140 mm), while Stalden in the entrenched Vispa valley, 4 miles (6 km) south of the main Rhône valley, has the lowest, 21 inches (533 mm).

• SKIES AND TEMPERATURES

The stable high-pressure weather conditions prevailing over central Europe and the Alps during autumn and winter create cold air masses that result in lowland fog, a climatic phenomenon with widely varying consequences. The mouths of the northern Alpine valleys, the basins of the Jura Mountains, and the villages and cities of the low areas of the Mittelland are blanketed for days and often for weeks on end, while towns located at higher altitudes enjoy warm, brilliant, high-pressure conditions and the view of the glistening sea of fog below them. Temperature inversions between mountain and valley locations in close proximity can be quite pronounced, with higher elevations having higher temperature readings. Frequent temperature inversion has made Switzerland’s high-altitude resorts healthful places even during winter and has helped the Alpine winter season gain popularity in Europe for sports; in addition, because of these inversions polluted air is much less common in areas of high elevation than in the lowlands. In fact, the temperature inversions that affect the Mittelland tend to trap polluted air for weeks when cyclonic activity stagnates.

• AVALANCHES

With the increase in winter tourism, the study of avalanches has developed as a branch of Alpine climatology, and in wintertime the research station near Davos releases daily avalanche bulletins as a warning for villagers and tourists. The Alpine cantons have about 10,000 avalanches annually, with about four-fifths of them occurring in February, March, and April. For centuries, village communes have relied on forests on the mountain slopes for protection from these slides, because a 20- to 30-year-old forest can inhibit or stop small avalanches. Villages, highways, and Alpine paths are also protected by costly artificial structures such as metal barriers, earthen walls, and concrete wedges and enclosures. Acid rain, however, has caused the illness and death of many trees in the mountain areas of Switzerland and poses a serious threat to their ability to act as barriers to avalanches. In the mountain forests, some two-fifths of the trees have been classified as damaged, sick, or dying.

• Plant and animal life
• VEGETATION

Vegetation in Switzerland is derived from that of the four European climatic regions that converge in the country and has been influenced by the varied relief. It includes the beeches and oaks of the maritime west; hornbeam and larch trees in the more continental east, predominantly in the Engadin and the dry Valais; extensive spruce forests in the northern subalpine region; and chestnut groves in the south. Differences in vegetation are evident in the Alpine valleys because of exposure to the sun. The vegetation boundaries are several hundred feet higher in the south of the country—for example, in Valais—than in the north because of the southern exposure. Alpine vegetation, similar to that of Arctic tundra, prevails above the tree line. It is very susceptible to erosion through skiing impacts and as a result of paths or four-wheel-drive trails cut into the slopes.

• ANIMAL LIFE

Switzerland’s animal life is primarily Alpine, but a mixture of species familiar to southern and north-central Europe is also found. Animal life is protected, except during a brief annual hunting season. Alpine tourists may observe marmots, which live in the high meadows, and chamois. Large herds of the round ibex, which had died out in the Swiss Alps and has since been reintroduced, populate several areas, especially in the Bernina region of Graubünden (canton) and in the Saastal of Valais. In the forests there are deer, rabbits, foxes, badgers, squirrels, and many varieties of birds, including eagles, while lake and river trout may be found but are no longer as abundant as in the past. Snakes and lizards are concentrated in the south, but insects, in great variety, are diffused throughout the country.