Talk:Cantons of Switzerland

Discussions moved from User talk:Docu

Moved from User talk:Docu

I see you've been adding the Swiss cantons to Cantons of Switzerland (nice work BTW) and List of capitals of subnational entities, as well as changing Basle back to Basel. The issue is that we have decided to use English terms for places where available. In adapting the template to Switzerland I have followed the English placenames used by the Swiss federal government, see here. I know, "Basel" is often used in English, partly because native German speakers would use it when writing English (the city website does so as well), partly because the difference is minimal, but the fact remains there is a separate English name for the city. Likewise for Argovia, Thurgovia, Saint Gall, Grisons, etc. Is there any reason we should not follow the names given by the federal government? Danke/Merci/Grazie/...I don't speak Romansh ;) -Scipius 19:22 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the praise. "Anglicisation" mentions Torino and recommends using what would be the least surprising to a user finding the article. I suppose naming in the line with media or local/national tourist office usage should be ok. Possibly the choices used by the federal government pages linked on the suggested reference under "Key Data" (also here) may be a good thing. I did notice that Basel had recently been changed to Basle, a form not used by the 1911EB. Interestingly the new accords named after that city are spelled Basel (formerly Basle). I tend to think that "Argovia" is an Italian or Latin word. -- User:Docu 20:17 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

I was the one who changed that as I was following the federal cantons page. As said, Basel is not that much of an issue, since the difference is minimal, even if "Basle" can still be used. As for others where the difference is larger (Grisons/Graubünden), it's best to be consistent is naming the canton and if there is a different English form, then why not use it? Redirects take care of the rest. It's certainly the case that there is a tendency to use local names, but it can easily become a slippery slope (which do we anglicise and which not?), so my opinion would be to be a bit conservative. As for "Argovia" and "Thurgovia" seeming Latin, that is entirely logical. English often uses either Latin names or French names (see Grisons), especially in areas close to where French is spoken. This is the case in Belgium, but also for cities like Cologne. -Scipius 21:27 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

I went through a series of current English language travel guides on Switzerland, just one mentionned "Argovia" (but together with the name Aargau), thus I think we should change it back. --User:Docu 08:23 Mar 30, 2003 (UTC)

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(Moved here from User talk:Docu):

Is it really necessary to create xxxx(canton) and redirect them to Canton of xxxx? -- wshun 23:04, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As it may be easier to write "Schaffhausen (canton)|" instead of "Canton of Schaffhausen|Schaffhausen" .. yes -- User:Docu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docu (talk • contribs) 01:04, 10 August 2003 (UTC)

I don't think that is so much differences. Anyway, do you start to rewrite all articles Canton of xxxx. Now many xxxx(canton) are just doubly redirect to xxxx, which do not work well in Wikipedia. wshun 01:29, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Where necessary (name of canton=capital), the articles will be at "Canton of xxx"). Thank you for fixing the links. Not much to rewrite though, rather to write. -- User:Docu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docu (talk • contribs) 01:41, 10 August 2003 (UTC)

In most contexts though Canton of Schaffhausen is more useful than Schaffhausen (canton) .. -- User:Docu — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docu (talk • contribs) 08:28, 16 August 2003 (UTC)

add Latin [was: remove Spanish and Esperanto]

Shouldn't we remove Spanish and Esperanto from the Names in other languages section? I mean this table is potentially very large because there are many more languages that have designated names/spellings for Swiss cities (at least some of them). Having the four "official" languages and English (the language of the encyclopedia) seems reasonable to me. To me having the Spanish/Esperanto names belongs to the Spanish and Esperanto version of Wikipedia respectively. Any views? diwiki 13:54, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

I think it can be helpful to have them on one page and may make it easier to maintain. There are similar lists for other fields. BTW it's just limited to cantons, not cities, and Latin is (still) missing. -- User:Docu

Fair enough. However, there is a list of places/cities List_of_cities_in_Switzerland. The thing if you include Sanish and Esperanto, you should also include Portuguese, Swedish etc. etc. Latin, on the other hand seems reasonable to me (history). diwiki 16:26, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

Feel free to translate this article into spanish or esperanto if these are your favorite languages. However, they are not swiss languages and have nothing to do on this page. No more than chinese, swaheli or bulgarian anyway. --212.254.96.12 11:45, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't have gone ahead and removed them, especially anonymously, before a long-enough discussion had found a consensus.

Esperanto is one of the languages of Radio Switzerland International, and as for Spanish it is one of the most important international languages. Much more so than Bulgarian or even Swahili. Probably more so than Portuguese. Chinese has more locutors but not in as many countries. I'm in favour of keeping here the information about the names of Swiss cantons, certainly in Esperanto and, why not?, in Spanish too. Maybe even Chinese if there are Chinese names for them. — Tonymec 13:39, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

What's left of "Swiss Radio International", namely: www.swissinfo.org uses english, deutsch, français, italiano, español, portugês, japanese, arabic and chinese on their homepage, FYI. So don't try to advocate esperanto by using false information. And a consensus for such questions has been found a long time ago: it's called wikipedia guidelines. It has never been wikipedia policy to add information to the english wikipedia in another language just because "it's one of most important international languages". Spanish has its own wikipedia because "it's one of most important international languages"! As I said: They are not swiss languages, so feel free to translate this article into spanish or esperanto like it's done everywhere else in the wikipedia.

I'm not talking about Swiss radio international on the web, but to their shortwave radio programs; and I'm seeing opinions pro and con up and down the present talk page about these "Spanish" and "Esperanto" columns: that's no consensus. It's also just in a table titled "Names in other languages" to boot. Are "other languages" chafing you so much that you want to remove them in a list which is explicitly about "other languages"? — Tonymec 10:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Spanish and Esperanto should be removed from the table. This is English Wikipedia, which should feature English and the native language(s) of the subject. It seems to me languages beyond these belong on their respective Wikipedia pages. If not, more languages should be featured, not just the odd choice of Spanish and Esperanto. By the way, Swiss Radio International ceased broadcasting shortwave in 2004. --skew-t 21:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, stick to the languages of Switzerland. -- Al™ 02:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Spanish is included on Languages_of_Switzerland#Languages. -- User:Docu

And I spoke mostly Esperanto during the time I spent in canton Neuchâtel. —Tamfang (talk) 15:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Remove Stick to wikipedia guidelines. Stay on topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ? (talk • contribs)

Which guideline? They could go in a separate table, but they are clearly on topic.

BTW Latin is missing in the table. It should be added. -- User:Docu

Agree Remove Spanish and Esperanto. At least put them on a seperate page "List of swiss canton names in all languages" or so. There you could include even latin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ? (talk • contribs)

Why make it a separate page? -- User:Docu

Links

There's a link to canton at the top of the article, but neither here nor there a proper definition of a canton is given. I think we should remove the link to canton and provide a proper defintion in the Swiss context at the top of this article. Any thoughts anyone? diwiki 21:55, 21 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sure. We could even enhance the French definition provided there. -- User:Docu

Spellings

I suggest we use the following spellings:

Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Aargau, Basel Stadt, Basel Landschaft, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Graubünden, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Ticino, Uri, Valais, Vaud, Zug, Zürich

See Talk:Switzerland for more. Kokiri 18:38, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Municipalities in Geneva

The number of municipalities for Geneva is shown as being 44; what is the source for this number ? I'm 99% confident (diplomatic way to say 100% ;-) that the correct number is 45. Canton of Geneva lists 45 names. I was going to make a change but was wondering where the total comes from: should I add 1 to it as well, or does it come from another source ? Schutz 00:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wondering how that happened. I changed it to 45 (as per [1]). I doubt the number increased since 2000. -- User:Docu

It definitively didn't increase -- it's been 45 for about 70 years... I've also updated the total, which was short by one after the change.Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More generally, should we try to update this table ? Some numbers are very outdated: in Fribourg, many municipalities have merged in the meantime: according to [2], the number was indeed 242 in 2000, but only 202 in early 2003, and still going down... Schutz 10:38, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personally I'd prefer if the data is all from the same year, even if it's not the most recent. Afterall, it's y2k just once. Unfortunatly, during the last update, it was even omitted to update the the population density in accordance with the population number. -- User:Docu

Number of Swiss cantons

There is a mild error in the number of Swiss cantons. There are 23 of them, not 26. The error is due to the half cantons which were counted as full ones.

Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land are two half cantons forming the canton of Basel. Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden are two half cantons building the Appenzell. Nidwalden and Obwalden are two half cantons forming Unterwald.

This has a political signification, since each canton sends two deputies to the States' Council. While each half canton has the right to send one deputy, not two. -- 83.228.183.253

The different ways to count are explained further down in the article. -- User:Docu

Sorry, whatever way you want to count and explain: Basel is a global denomination without political meaning, just as Appenzel and Unterwald. In fact, Switzerland has effectively 26 full fledged cantons. The notion of half canton reflects only in the deputation to the Swiss "Senate", the "Ständerat*, where the so called "half cantons" have only one deputy. Otherwise politically and officially, there are no half cantons. Half cantons count as a full canton, as each one has their own government, organisation and legal power. Each one elects and sends profortionally their own representatives in our Congress (Nationalrat). Please review your knowledge of Switzerland political organislation.. Beware of that, e.g. AI is basically catholic, AR, basically protestant. Don't revise the results of the Swiss civil war! For the others, there are also historic reasons for their split. Best regards. I do not mind merging both articles into one, as long as the facts and reasons explained in the "half canton" article remain. In conclusion, Switzerland has effectively 26 cantons and not 23!

claude (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Names of Swiss cantons

Docu, I don't understand your reversal of my latest edit.

Why do you insist on having e.g. Zürich (Zurich) and Basel-Stadt (Basle-City) but Lucerne and not Luzern (Lucerne), Geneva and not Genève (Geneva)?

IMHO the cantons' names should either all be listed in English only or all in the language spoken in the canton with English in brackets but not sometimes the one and sometimes the other. -- Tonymec 11:21, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The titles in English language Wikipedia should already be in English. IMHO, the discussed part of the page should just list primarly these titles and give some of the secondary versions (in English). If you want to change the title of the article "Canton of Zürich", please join the lengthy discussion at Talk:Zürich. For "Canton of Bern", there is one at Talk:Bern (and a previous one possibly elsewhere). -- User:Docu

I'm not talking about the titles of Wikipedia articles but about the cells of the table giving the names of cantons, their capitals, etc. in the body of the article "Cantons of Switzerland". It is not consistent to mention in this table, on this page the German name for some Alemanic cantons with the English name in brackets, and the English name for some other cantons with no mention of the name in the local language. If you want "Zürich (Zurich)", you should also put "Genève (Geneva)". OTOH if you want the English name "Geneva" without the French name "Genève" and the English "Lucerne" without the German "Luzern", you should also write the English names "Zurich" and "Basle-City" without the German "Zürich" or "Basel-Stadt". -- Tonymec 21:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia (see Talk:Zürich), "Zürich" is the English language name for "Zürich", as is "Geneva" for "Genève" and "Lucerne" for "Luzern". -- User:Docu

1. If you believe that "Zürich" is not only the proper German spelling but also the proper English spelling, what is "(Zurich)" doing there? The French spelling? Then why do you mention none of "(Genève, Genf, Ginevra, Genevra)" under "Geneva"?
2. I'm not going to accept that "Basel-Stadt" and "Basel-Landschaft" are English in preference to "Basle-City" and "Basle-Country". Similarly "Appenzell-Ausserrhoden" (which should actually be Äusserrhoden), "Appenzell-Innerrhoden", "Graubünden", "Aargau", "Thurgau". About "Obwalden" and "Nidwalden" I have strong doubts.
3. From what I've read at Talk:Zürich and elsewhere on the Wikipedia, there is no consensus as to whether "Zurich" or "Zürich" is the majoritarian English form. Of those in favour of using "Zürich" as the article title, some invoke Google tallies (which, however, vary according to the country where the computer requesting the Google search is located), others argue that since the majoritarian English forms differs only by diacritics from the native form, the native form should be used; the latter argument does not necessarily imply that the form with diacritics is the only (or even the best) English form.
4. The "New Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press 1998-2001" lists Zurich without umlaut and with main pronunciation /zjuerik/ (I'm simplifying since I don't have IPA on this keyboard: u should be an upside-down small capital omega, and e should be a schwa [reversed e]). /tsy:riç/ is only mentioned as "the German pronunciation". I infer from there that "the proper English form" according to authorities IMHO more respectable than the consensus of Wikipedians (not all of whom are even native English-speakers), is "Zurich" without umlaut. Note that the same NOED lists Liège with accent and Düsseldorf with umlaut, so the absence of an umlaut on "Zurich" cannot be ascribed to any general anti-diacritics politics on their part.
5. IIUC, the current Wikipedia policy is to use the native name as the article name when the difference between it and the English name consists only of diacritics. I shall concede that this applies in the case of the titles of the articles on the city and/or canton of Zurich but not to the body of the article on Swiss cantons.

-- Tonymec 21:07, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not joining the discussion, but wish to note that Appenzell-Ausserrhoden shouldn't "actually be Äusserrhoden" - it's never spelled with Ä, in any language, and certainly not in German. See de:Kanton Appenzell-Ausserrhoden in the German-language Wikipedia. Gestumblindi 18:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Update the data ?

Most of the data in the table is 5 years old or more, and should probably be updated. For example, the number of municipalities in the canton of Fribourg is now 162, down from 242 ! However, this need to be a concerted work, but since we just started a new year, I would propose that we should try to update all the data as of 1 January 2006. I know 2000 was the year of the last census, but most of the information should be available for the end of 2005 too. Schutz 23:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

In the table listing all the cantons including their population, the population data for Basel-Stadt is incorrect. Currently it is showing "2,002,981" but should be "200,298". Looking at the source of the page, the population is retrieved using a template function. I do not know how to debug this, so I will leave it to a more expert user to figure out how to correct this. 188.155.19.226 (talk) 22:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Hopefully putting the query here - Template talk:Swiss populations - will bring it to the attention of the gnomes who work on this sort of thing!! Sumorsǣte (talk) 13:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

Although the list of cantons is in the order it is given in the constitution, it doesn't look like it's in any order at all. Is there any reason why the list can't be in, for example, alphabetical order, order of introduction to the Confederation, area or population? What relevance does the order in the constitution have to each individual canton, and why can't we explain it in a different part of the article to make the list easier to view? ZanderSchubert 00:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The explanation about the order has been updated recently, do you like it better? -- User:Docu

Religion

Denominations in Switzerland (1700)

While it's my understanding that Swiss cantons no longer have officially established churches, it's also my understanding that, before 1848, they did, and that the traditional religious identity of various cantons as either Protestant or Catholic is fairly significant, perhaps nearly as much as language. Would it be worthwhile to indicate whether a particular canton is traditionally protestant or Catholic, either in the table or somewhere else? john k 15:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The relations between church and state varies from one canton to the other. Image:Historische Karte CH 1700 E.png gives the historic situation. -- User:Docu

Spanish and Esperanto

Needless to say, it makes perfect sense having the names of all the cantons in the four languages of Switzerland and in English on the English Wikipedia. Having said that, I fail to see how the names of the Swiss cantons in Spanish and Esperanto are relevant. I suggest they be removed from the article. JdeJ 08:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed Spanish and Esperanto from the list of canton names while keeping the five other languages. Apart from English, the four other languages are all official languages of Switzerland and of at least one Swiss canton. Neither Spanish nor Esperanto has got any official position in Switzerland, neither of them is widely spoken in the country and neither has any relevance to this article. I can see no reason why the names of cantons in these two languages were added. JdeJ 10:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Flags

While the flags on this page are adequate, the ones featured on the french translation have a much grander appearance. I propose switching to those flags. I would do it, but I do not know how. Skunkboy72 21:37, 29 April 2009

List of castles and fortresses in Switzerland

Should this be included in the 'see also'? Yes, there are many noteworthy castles in Switzerland, but how does this specifically relate to Switzerland's cantons? To me it makes about as much sense as linking to Public holidays in Switzerland or Health care in Switzerland. The list of castles link is probably more suitable on History of Switzerland, or Outline of Switzerland, but I'm not so sure about this one. Hayden120 (talk) 22:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I included the listing for the simple fact that there are no sufficient links to the historic heirloom of Switzerland. Swiss history's main visible remains are its castles and fortresses, which, for quite a main part, were firstly erected in times where the geographic separation into cantons did not yet exist. Through the history of most of those, a good part of Switzerland's history can be explained. It's only a matter of establishing the full fledged articles on each castle and historical reasons and the links between many of them can be established. Mentioning the listing is a good start to having the articles finally established. Meanwhile, a reference to each city or area is already quite helpful. Therefore, please desist with your idea of suppressing the link.

Best regards

claude (talk) 23:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not "suppressing" the link, I simply think it has no relevance here. I do not doubt the importance of Switzerland's castles and fortresses. However, the 'see also' section should only link to articles directly related to the topic. Castles are not specific to the cantons of Switzerland. There needs to be some common sense when adding to the 'see also' section, otherwise it will grow out of control. Look at the other links; they all have the word 'canton' in them. Hayden120 (talk) 00:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree - castles have nothing to do with cantons, and therefore the link serves no purpose here.  Sandstein  05:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Picture

The lower map image should be changed, as both the key and description in the image are in German. This is an English page, so untranslated descriptions in German as part of the article are totally unnaceptable. 90.192.145.153 (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

"Lieus"

In December 2015, User:ZH8000 inserted "lieu" as an English alternative for "canton".[3] This was done without any explanatory edit summary, and without citing even an obscure reference that might have used this word. Why would you do something like this? It clearly deteriorates article quality if you leave the same footnotes in place but change the things the footnote is attached to, ending up with "references" that do no longer actually support the article content.

The fact of the matter is that the historical German term is Ort (early 15th century), joined by the more "political" Stand in the 16th. The French term was canton from about 1490, used in English from about 1610. Lieu seems to be an attempt at a French translation of Ort. Although, of course, canton is *already* the historical attempt to translate Ort, so lieu can only be seen as an attempt to explain the German word to contemporary French speakers. But, I have to add, translating "Ort" as "lieu" is based on a misunderstanding of the 15th-century German term informed by contemporary German; the "correct" translation of the historical term is "canton". Why would you conclude from this situation that "lieu" is a proper replacement for "canton" in English?? There is no good translation for "Ort" in English (except for the obscure equivalent ord). It means "location, place, spot, corner, point, gore". --dab (𒁳) 09:11, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

1648 to 1848?

The lead of this article states:

Each canton (or in earlier times: Statt ("site/settlement"), or Städte und Länder ("towns and countries/countrysides"), or Ort ("place/location"), or Stand ("estate") from 13th to around 1800) was a fully sovereign state[1] with its own border controls, army, and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848.

I'm not an expert on Swiss history, so I'm reluctant to contradict this, but what about the Helvetic Republic (1798–1803)?. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The particular situation during the very short period of the Helvetic Republic is explained in the History paragraph. During this period they did not use any different wording than canton.

Regarding your change of the translation of Ort: you are probably right that Lieu is not even better than place or location, because all three would be a wrong translation even though related of course. Duden explicitly defines a third meaning for Ort. There is no accurate translation in English for this third meaning in German, not surprisingly. But just to call it "place" or "location" would be too simple, if not misleading. Sometimes in German texts also "Ortschaft" is used instead, but seams to be just the long version of it. Ort/Ortschaft as a former version of a canton rather refers to a combination of the meaning of "(souvereign) territory", "community", "county", "dominion" than to a place in the sense of a spot, location in general. And since "lieu", a French loan word, would have the potential not to stress the common knowledge of the meaning about a place or location, it could be a candidate. In other words, in German, the term Ort(e) in the context of Swiss ancient cantons much rather refer to the political context than only to a geographical place. Would you agree to write instead: Ort (lit.: place, referring to "souvereign territory", "community")? -- ZH8000 (talk) 07:14, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I would not. Please stop trying to perform the historian's job of coming up with terminology based on naive use of dictionaries. Find a respectable source citing a "literal translation", or please just give up the fruitless task of providing "literal translations". The "literal" translation of Ort is ord, a word which used to mean "a point of land; a promontory" but is now all but obsolete. Instead, find a historian or philologist explaining the term and then summarize the explanation.

Here is Adelung (1784) explaining the specific Swiss use of the term Ort to (non-Swiss) German speakers:

[Ort: ... (2e) ] Ein Theil der Erdfläche, ein in seine Gränzen eingeschlossener Theil der Oberfläche der Erde, ein Bezirk; im Plural die Örter und im Oberdeutschen die Orte. In den Orten der Wüste wohnen, Jerem. 9, 26. Im Hochdeutschen ist auch diese Bedeutung unbekannt, im Oberdeutschen aber kommt sie mehrmahls vor. So werden die Cantons der Schweizer daselbst nur Orte, oder Ortschaften genannt. Das gleichbedeutende Canton stammet auf ähnliche Art von Kante, Ecke, ab, wie Ort von Ort, Ecke. Die Fränkische Reichsritterschaft wird in sechs Orte oder Örter, d. i. Kreise, getheilet, welche Odenwald, Gedürg, Röhn und Werra, Steyerwald, Altmühl und Buchau heißen. Die Schwäbische Ritterschaft bestehet aus fünf Orten. (f) In engerer Bedeutung, ein von Menschen bewohnter Theil der Erdfläche; wo es ein allgemeiner Ausdruck ist, welcher Städte, Schlösser, Flecken, und Dörfer unter sich begreift. Der Plural hat hier im gemeinen Leben und der vertraulichen Sprechart Örter, im Oberdeutschen und der anständigern Schreibart aber Orte. An meinem Orte, in der Stadt, dem Flecken, dem Dorfe, woher ich gebürtig bin, wo ich wohne.

the point is that French canton is a literal translation of German Ort , as both have the meaning "edge, corner". The "literal" English meaning of either word is "corner".

--dab (𒁳) 11:04, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Alten Orte

Two further major steps in the development of the Swiss cantonal system are referred to by the terms Acht Alten Orte ("confederation of eight"; during 1353–1481) and Dreizehn Alten Orte ("Thirteen-Canton Confederation", during 1513–1798); they were important intermediate periods of the Ancient Swiss Confederacy.

My German is very weak, but I'm confident in saying I don't see any word corresponding to 'confederation' in these phrases; they appear to mean 'Eight Old Districts' and 'Thirteen Old Districts'. Why not translate literally? —Tamfang (talk) 21:06, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

It was an ad-hoc attempt to gloss the term on the part of whoever is in charge of maintaining English-language translations at eda.admin.ch[4] Neither a quotable source, nor was it intended as anything other than an explanatory gloss of the terms.

Much worse, the reference to "the Acht Alten Orte" in English is a misleading and incompetent handling of German adjective inflection. It uses the definite adjective inflection with the English definite article, this is just awkward. It should be either Die Acht Alten Orte or "the Acht Alte Orte". However, the term is a fixed expression, and it is never used without the definite article in German.

It is inept to try to provide "literal" translation of set historiographical terminology armed with a simple German-English dictionary. A translation which has actually been used in English historiographic literature is "the eight old cantons", but it is rather more common to just see "the eight cantons", with omission of translation of Alte.

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

--dab (𒁳) 10:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

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"Swiss Confederacy"?

As far as I know we always say "Swiss Confederation" in English - "Confederacy" is only used for the southern states of the USA that tried to secede. "Confederacy" is used no fewer than 11 times in this text.46.183.103.8 (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

It's also used for the Old Swiss Confederacy (versus the modern Swiss Confederation). Actually English makes more of a distinction here than French, German, or Italian, where the same word is used for both the old and new type ("confédération", "Eidgenossenschaft", "confederazione", see the Federal Archives on the Old Confederacy e.g.. You can click on all four languages). Anyway, thanks for pointing it out, but the article uses "Confederacy" correctly in every instance I checked. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Map

The map in the infobox is next to useless, since the cantons are not named on it. Is it too much to hope for a map of the cantons that actually shows their names? --Viennese Waltz 12:37, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Totally agree with you. It seems someone edited {{Switzerland Cantons Labelled Map}}, making it unlabelled. I'm changing it back with labels, using a better, colored map version. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

(See also {{France Regions Labelled Map}} (Regions of France) and {{German Federal States}} (States of Germany) --Tomchen1989 (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2019 (UTC))

Lower case 'c' or upper case 'C' in canton?

For future concerns the designated editor is referred to the official English style guide by the Swiss Federal Administration.

It says on page 17:

• "Write ‘the canton of’ (lower case c) when referring to the geopolitical area."

Examples: "I live in the canton of Neuchâtel. The canton of Bern is Switzerland’s sec- ond largest.

• "However, use a capital C for Canton when referring to the government of that canton."

Examples: "The Canton of Basel approved the new legislation."

I think this is a reasonable and usable distinction. -- ZH8000 (talk) 12:27, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Seems sensible. As you'd expect from the Confederation. Sumorsǣte (talk) 19:12, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The population density column is wrong (see e.g. Zurich or the whole of Switzerland, it is inconsistent with the pop / area data)

It should be calculated automatically from the other columns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abacus1997 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Updated to calculate the density instead of having a static number.Tobyc75 (talk) 11:56, 14 June 2021 (UTC)