Soccer The world football association has been coordinating its activities from its new headquarters near the Zurich Zoo since 2006. The new Home of FIFA blends harmoniously into the unique landscape. The development also includes a soccer field with international dimensions and artificial turf, a training field and a beach soccer field. FC Zurich’s home stadium (Internet: www.fcz.ch) is the Letzigrund Stadium, Baslerstrasse 5 (Tel: (08 48) 80 08 00.…
Read MoreSwitzerland Population and Language
Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romanian. Within the states, the cantons, their character and language have been largely retained over the centuries. People rarely move between the cantons and the language boundaries are quite clear. Nowadays, a quarter of the country’s residents are citizens of another country. Nearly two out of three residents speak German, which is the only official language in 17 of 26 cantons,…
Read MoreNetherlands Population and Language
The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Nearly half of the population also lives on one fifth of the country’s area, within the largely interconnected urban area in the west called Randstad Holland. Randstad Holland includes the four largest cities Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Rotterdam, as well as a number of other municipalities. Together they form one of the largest metropolises in Europe.…
Read MoreMonaco Population and Language
Monaco has more than 38,000 residents. Because the country is so small – the entire area consists of urban development – population density is the highest among the countries of the world, almost 20,000 per square kilometer. Only one fifth of the population consists of native monegasks. Of the other residents, the French are the most followed by Italians and British. The remainder comes mainly from other European countries. For…
Read MoreLiechtenstein Population and Language
One third of Liechtenstein’s residents are foreign nationals. Alongside the foreigners who live in the country, around 20,000 people commute to the principality from neighboring countries. German is the official language. The high proportion of non-citizens is the result of an extensive labor migration that has taken place since the 1970s, as well as strict citizenship laws. The laws have been somewhat mitigated, but it is still a basic rule…
Read MoreGermany Population and Language
The German people have emerged from a number of different Germanic peoples: Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, Swabians, Rhineans, Palatians and others. Germany is, second to Russia, Europe’s most populous state but its residents are unevenly distributed. The most densely populated areas are in the west and in the south: the Ruhr area, the Rhine-Main area around Frankfurt, the Rhine-Neckar area at Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, the region around Stuttgart and other metropolitan…
Read MoreFrance Population and Language
France is one of Europe’s most populous states. Population growth was far slower than in most European countries. After World War II, measures were taken to encourage childbirth, which contributed to higher birth rates. France is today one of the EU countries where women give birth to the most children, even though the birth rate in 2015 had dropped to the lowest in five years. However, pensioners’ share of the…
Read MoreBelgium Population and Language
Belgium has two large groups of people, Flemish and Walloon, and the division between them has characterized the entire country’s modern history. Flemish people live in Flanders in the north and speak Dutch, though the language here is called Flemish. In Wallonia, which makes up the southern half of the country, you speak French. There is also a small group of German speakers and German is the country’s third official…
Read MoreAustria Population and Language
Historically, Austria has a unified population with only small elements of ethnic minorities. Large immigration since the end of the 20th century means that one fifth of the residents today have roots in another country. Some ethnic groups that have lived in the country for at least a hundred years have official status as minorities. This applies to Hungarians and Croats who live in the state of Burgenland in the…
Read MoreAndorra Population and Language
Since the Second World War, Andorra’s population has multiplied, mainly due to extensive immigration. In 2015, the number of residents was just over 85,000. Just under half of the residents are Andoran citizens, while 26 percent are Spaniards, 14 percent Portuguese and 5 percent are French. In addition, there are many guest workers from Latin America and North Africa who work in tourism and agriculture. Andorra has no reception system…
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