The Swiss register

Bern · Federal City
The old town has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1983. The city was founded in 1191 and holds the title of federal city, which is not the same as capital. The Bureau observes the distinction. The town was laid out on a peninsula enclosed by the Aare, which decided its shape before any planner did. Seven hundred and ninety-two years separate the founding from the listing. The Bureau finds the interval unremarkable and has entered both dates without comment.

Geneva · International City
The fountain began as a safety valve on the city's hydraulic network and was kept for its appearance. Five hundred litres a second, to a height of a hundred and forty metres. The Bureau approves of works that outlive their purpose. The city entered the Confederation in 1815, long after it had finished being a republic of its own. The register carries the later date because it is the one that can be documented, and notes that Geneva was old before it was Swiss.

Grindelwald · Glacier Village
The village sits at 1034 metres, beneath the Wetterhorn, which rises to 3690. The Bureau records the difference between the two figures and considers it the point of the place. Glaciers cover some 21.6 per cent of the municipal area, a proportion the register prints without projection. The designation was granted for ice that has since withdrawn up its valleys. The Bureau has not revised it, holding that a name records what was found rather than what remains.

Interlaken · Jungfrau Region
The name is a description: the town lies between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. The Bureau has no amendment to propose. It was entered in 1133 as inter lacus Madon, the house of Augustinian canons that gave the place its name and its first register. The house lasted until 1528 and was then secularised. The name outlived the institution, which the Bureau considers the usual order of events and has ceased to find remarkable.

Lauterbrunnen · Bernese Oberland
The Staubbach falls 297 metres down a sheer wall, and in dry weather reaches the valley floor as mist. The Bureau gazettes it as a waterfall regardless. The valley is first entered in writing in 1240 as in claro fonte, a description rather than a name; Luterbrunnen follows in 1304. The Bureau prefers the earlier form, which says what is there. The Staubbach is the highest free-falling fall in the country; the Murrenbach, close by, is the highest of any kind at 417 metres. The register prints both and lets the distinction stand.

Lucerne · Bridge Quarter
The covered bridge dates from the fourteenth century. It burned in 1993 and was rebuilt within eight months. The Bureau records both dates, and holds the second to be the more remarkable. The town joined the Confederation in 1332, thirty-three years before the bridge was raised. The order matters: the crossing was built by a town that had already chosen its side. The Bureau files the bridge under infrastructure and the fire under weather, for want of a better heading.

Montreux · Swiss Riviera
The Chateau de Chillon appears in a charter of 1150, on a rock in Lake Geneva a short way along the shore. The Bureau files the town under lake stations. The castle was drawing more than a hundred thousand visitors a year by 1939, which the register notes as the earliest figure it holds rather than the highest. It stands on rock, in water, at the foot of a road that has carried traffic since before the charter. The Bureau considers the position well chosen and says so rarely.

Switzerland · Alpine Republic
Twenty-six cantons, four national languages, and no capital city in the constitutional sense. Bern holds the title of federal city. The Bureau files it accordingly. The federal charter is dated 1291, which the register carries as the founding entry while noting that the document settles a dispute rather than founds a state. The Bureau prefers the earlier reading and has not amended the date. Twenty-six is a count, not an estimate, and is printed without qualification.

Zermatt · Alpine Station
The village admits no combustion engines. Visitors leave their cars at Tasch and complete the journey by rail. The Bureau considers the arrangement exemplary and has recommended it elsewhere, without success. The place is first recorded in 1280 under the name Pratabornum, which it has since abandoned. Above it stands the Matterhorn at 4478 metres, drawn on the badge from the Stafelalp side, where the summit ridge leans right and the pyramid stands clear of its neighbours. The Bureau holds that a mountain is identified by its profile and not by its altitude, which many share.

Zurich · On the Limmat
A free imperial city from 1218, and since then a place where money is counted with care. The Bureau notes the two towers on the Limmat and refrains from further comment. The city swore allegiance to the Confederacy on 1 May 1351, a hundred and thirty-three years after the first date and, the register observes, without visible haste. Both dates are held on file. The Bureau has formed no view on which of the two the city prefers.