Zurich is close to some excellent skiing resorts and many people headed for the Swiss Alps don't spend much time in Zurich itself, but you'd be missing a lot if you don't stay in Zurich for a couple of days at least. While Zurich is Switzerland's biggest city and a cultural centre of German-speaking Switzerland, Berne is the Swiss capital.
It has a population of some , in the city, and 1. Zurich is on Lake Zurich, where the lake meets the river Limmat, in the north of Switzerland. Despite it not being the administrative capital of any more than its Kanton , Zurich punches well above its weight in terms of major media and business headquarters and due to it being at the heart of Switzerland's excessively punctual and meticulously maintained train network and being home to Switzerland's most important airport, it is often the first part of Switzerland that visitors get to see.
While Zurich can be expensive, it is also clean, efficient and blessed with a high standard of living, which together with the high wages, explains why people bear with the high prices. Zurich has drawn people from the rest of Switzerland for centuries, but in the 20th and 21st centuries it has also begun to draw both people and companies from outside Switzerland and in some cases even outside Europe.
This means that you will hear a lot more languages than just Swiss German and the overall atmosphere is a lot more cosmopolitan than you might think. Zurich is home to ETH Zurich, one of the world's leading technical universities, which has produced a number of Nobel laureates and numerous innovations and due to Switzerland's long history of neutrality it also houses headquarters of the likes of FIFA and the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Zurich is also home to a number of large banking and insurance conglomerates that grew on the fabled Swiss banking secret and still enjoy good reputations in the financial sector. The city's Latin name, Turicum , was used for a Roman customs station at the Limmat, which has some remnants today. The Alemanni, a Germanic tribe, settled in the 5th century. The Guilds have survived until today, though their role today is mostly ceremonial. Zurich became the fifth canton of the Swiss Confederacy in , and has been its capital at times.
