Talk:Switzerland Voyage Tips and guide

The Latin name for "Swiss Confederation" was just posted. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Latin is not an official language of Switzerland. So why should the Latin term be used? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Latin isn't an official language in Switzerland. I've seen the Latin name on coins and Wikipedia says the reason is "Given the different languages used in Switzerland, Latin is used for language-neutral inscriptions on the coins." I have no strong opinion whether to keep the Latin name there or remove it. Ypsilon (talk) 06:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

If there's a good reason to leave the Latin name up, I'm fine with that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Switzerland is often abbreviated as CH that comes from Confoederatio Helvetica. (And not from the propensity of Swiss German speakers to use sounds that are in German represented as CH ;-) ) --Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Archived discussion of Swiss regions: Talk:Switzerland/Archive_2003-2012#Regions_of_Switzerland --Andrewssi2 (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I hate to bring this up, because it causes all kinds of inconvenience, but Wikivoyage policy is not to include anyplace that can be considered a city (including villages that function as ski resorts) in "Other destinations." Is there anyplace other than Rhine Falls which is not populated and actually belongs in this section? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Each of those articles describe places that also have a population. Rhine Falls is just an attraction which per wiaa wouldn't qualify for an article on its own (and therefore the article redirects to Schaffhausen). I guess we need to empty the whole section.

I wasn't aware that Other destinations could not contain destinations that are cities/towns/villages etc. If this is the case, do we really need that heading in the default template for countries and regions or could we do away with it? ϒpsilon (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

It seems to be common practice to list huge ski resorts in "Other destinations" in cases where the resort is massive - see Colorado#Other destinations, which includes Aspen & Vail. That makes sense to me, so I'm not sure a change is needed in the Switzerland article. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:01, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't support doing away with "Other destinations", because it's the place to list great parks and such, but by default, there should be hidden text in the section that specifies that it's not for listing cities if that's the policy we've adopted, and maybe we should discuss this at Wikivoyage talk:Region article template, because the issue goes beyond the country level; I'll post to Wikivoyage talk:Region article template#Other destinations to (re)start the discussion. However, I think that in any case, it's OK to list great attractions in "Other destinations", such as "Rhine Falls in Schaffhausen. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:03, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

This section is a mess - not all destinations are even on the country map. I'd say St. Gallen can safely be skipped from the cities list, as it is hardly a premier tourist destination, but St. Moritz, and perhaps Interlaken and Davos may deserve a place for their international notoriety as alpine resorts. As concerns "Other destinations", Switzerland is so rich in mountains ranges, peaks, valleys and lakes that I would look into those to highlight just a few over yet another almost-as-famous city or cantonal capital. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:28, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Grindelwald, the gateway to Jungfrau-Aletsch area and the famous rack railway should also stay. ϒpsilon (talk) 18:45, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Then why not also Pfäffikon, the gateway to Schwyz? Seriously, we need perhaps 1 alpine resort that is globally recognizable, St Moritz could do. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, glamorous St.Moritz should absolutely be there. ϒpsilon (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

[unindent] I'd like to revisit this. Here is the current "Other destinations" section:

• 46.29.0166671 Bellinzona — renowned for its medieval castles, world UNESCO heritage, pretty centre and capital of the canton of Ticino, overlooking one of the few flat rural areas of Switzerland towards Lake Maggiore.
• 46.89.8333332 Davos – large ski resort where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place
• 46.859.5333333 Chur — capital of the canton of Graubünden (The Grisons) it is the only trilingual Swiss canton, in the east-south of the country; gate to several glitzy ski and hiking resorts
• 46.6166678.0333334 Grindelwald — the classic resort at the foot of the Eiger
• 46.6833337.855 Interlaken — the outdoor and action sports capital of Switzerland; anything from skydiving, bungee jumping, hiking, white-water rafting, to canyoning
• 46.59.8333336 St. Moritz – glitzy ski resort in the Engadine valley in south-eastern Switzerland
• 46.0166677.757 Zermatt — famous mountain resort at the base of the mighty Matterhorn
• 46.3837.6338 Leukerbad — mountain and ski resort known for its thermal springs and unique mountain scenery

If we're OK with towns that are mainly known as resorts being "Other destinations", alright, but do we really want to include the capitals of cantons and a place like Bellinzona, which is neither a ski resort nor, like Chur, the "gate" to several resorts? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:52, 6 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Anyone with an opinion about this? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nothing that should be construed as a town or city belongs in "Other destinations", period. If that means that there aren't enough "other destinations" to be listed that are on the same level of importance as the "cities", so be it - nowhere is it written that there have to be 7±2 of them. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

As it stands, none of these entries qualify as even the resorts are inhabited towns. I believe however, that there are some other destinations which are important enough to be listed here. Here's a suggestion for the destinations to list:

• 46.49196.74619 Lavaux — A region of terraced vineyards on the shore of Lake Geneva and a UNESCO cultural heritage site.
• 46.5038.03610 Jungfrau-Aletsch — A protected area around the largest glaciated area in the Alps. This high alpine park offers stunning views and is also a UNESCO natural heritage site.
• 46.6710.16611 Swiss National Park — Switzerland's only national park in the remote border area between Graubünden, Italy and Austria.

There are some other parks etc which would fit here (Greina or Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona for instance), but I think those are not really on par with the destinations listed as cities and can probably be listed in the subregions.

If we are taking out all the resorts from this list, we should list some of them under cities, as they are really much more important from a travelers point of view than some of the cities. (A lot of the appeal of Switzerland are its mountains and rural areas and not the urban centres) I'd suggest adding Zermatt, Interlaken and either Davos or St. Moritz. In order to stay within 9 cities, candidates for removal would be Basel, Lausanne, St. Gallen and Lugano. Drat70 (talk) 04:50, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your suggestions, much appreciated. I do tend to demur on one thing, though: I haven't been to Switzerland, but I doubt it makes sense to exclude Basel, the third-largest city in the country. Remember that this is not just a tourist guide, and that many people go to Basel on business. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:34, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree, Basel is important. It's definitely not an easy call, St. Gallen for instance has a famous monastery under UNESCO, Lausanne is a popular spot for parties and Basel is as you say quite prominent as well. I just think as it stands now, with only big cities and none of the mountain resorts, this is not very representative of what Switzerland has to offer, especially since places like Zermatt and St. Moritz are at least as famous as most of those cities. Drat70 (talk) 07:05, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I agree with you on this point. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:11, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

As Ryan suggested in the early phases of this discussion, I think it might make sense to bend the rules to include in "Other destinations" places that are primarily known as ski resorts, even if they also incidentally function as towns (using one of his examples, there are about 7,000 people who live in Aspen, but for travel purposes no one thinks of it as anything other than a resort). But I think if we're treating the definition of a resort so loosely as to include cantonal capitals, that's several bridges too far. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

[unindent] In that case, why not something like this:

• 46.89.83333312 Davos — large ski resort where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place
• 46.6166678.03333313 Grindelwald — the classic resort at the foot of the Eiger
• 46.49196.746114 Lavaux — A region of terraced vineyards on the shore of Lake Geneva and a UNESCO cultural heritage site.
• 46.59.83333315 St. Moritz — glitzy ski resort in the Engadine valley in south-eastern Switzerland
• 46.5038.03616 Jungfrau-Aletsch — A protected area around the largest glaciated area in the Alps. This high alpine park offers stunning views and is also a UNESCO natural heritage site.
• 46.0166677.7517 Zermatt — famous mountain resort at the base of the mighty Matterhorn

I would take Bellinzona, Chur and Interlaken out because as mentioned, these are really cities and not resorts. We could discuss on whether to replace Lugano in the cities list with Bellinzona, but I think either one will do, as long as we do have at least one in the Italian part of Switzerland. Interlaken, we could move it to the cities list, as it is quite a popular destination. I'd also take out Leukerbad, it's a nice place, but it's not one of the very famous/outstanding places when compared to the others. I would also add at Jungfrau-Aletsch and Lavaux, as these are two famous and popular non-city destinations. Drat70 (talk) 06:16, 23 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I have no first-hand knowledge of Switzerland, but I'm satisfied with your ideas and reasoning. I'd suggest you go ahead within 2-3 days if there are no objections. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:32, 23 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good to me. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

This is now done. Drat70 (talk) 01:53, 27 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

As it stands now the history section has to be changed. Back in Roman times Switzerland was a mixture of different Roman and Celtic tribes of which the Helvetians were one that is perhaps only notable because Caesar made ample mention of them in the eraly chapters of "de bello gallico" they became pars pro toto identified with Switzerland only much later, similarly as the Allemans are identified with Germany in many languages ore the Swabians in Polish or the Saxons in some quarters of the Czech Republic etc.

That being said the history of Swiss democracy doesn't go back "millenia". While the Celtic and/or Germanic tribes might well have chosen their leaders in war via acclamation and not really have had leaders in peacetime this tradition - if it ever was more than Tacitus pining back for better times in Rome and thus describing Germania in such a light - this tradition has sure ended when Switzerland came under complete Roman control ca. 50 BC. The first we hear again about any sort of "Swiss democracy" are the half mythical events surrounding the plight of Uri Schwyz and Unterwalden to reduce the power of the Hapsburgs (the events described in "Wilhelm Tell"). However to this day it is very uncertain whether any of those things ever actually happened even remotely close to what is described in the national myths of Switzerland. Up until well in the 19th century Switzerland was not any more democratic than "self governing" Reichstädte in the holy Roman empire (that was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire nor -for that matter - German) with a small elite of patricians or "full citizens" usually the only allowed real control. Besides there were "zugewandte Orte" that had really no say whatsoever in anything. Also the old confederation before the events of the French revolution was not centralized in any way shape or form and hardly anybody would recognize it as a state if such an entity appeared today. And yes Switzerland is still known for direct democracy and arguably the "Landsgemeinde" has been held in some parts since the 15th century, but women didn't get the vote until 1971 in all of Switzerland and in some Kantone not until late 1990. Therefore you could in a way argue that Switzerland actually has a very young tradition of democracy. As a matter of fact the "Things" of old Scandinavian countries and Iceland seem to be in many ways similar to the Landsgemeinde in that they are or were a meeting of all or most of the male adult inhabitants of a territory to decide pressing issues, adjudicate and exchange news. Therefore in a way Iceland has the oldest democratic tradition in all of Europe, although not an unbroken one. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:31, 13 February 2015 (UTC)Reply

It doesn't look like any changes were made. Perhaps you should plunge forward, now that it's more than 3 years later? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:29, 25 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Would somebody be so kind to correct some, for years existing errors in the overall map?

For example:

Lucern --> either Luzern or Lucerne, but not Lucern

GRAUBUNDEN --> GRAUBÜNDEN, or even better: GRAUBÜNDEN / GRISONS

and eventually also change VALAIS into VALAIS / WALLIS

Further, I would also advice to add a few additional spots, such as:

Brig, Andermatt, Chur, Davos, St. Moritz, St. Gallen, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, Neuchâtel, Bellinzona

and Liechtenstein.

Thanks. -- ZH8000 (talk) 15:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

The map was made by an user whom I believe not be active in this Wiki, but User:Shaundd, User:Globe-trotter and User:Ypsilon from Finland have made many exemplary maps. Perhaps one of them would be interested in following up on your query. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Or User:Saqib. ϒpsilon (talk) 18:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Well I think a major work is required on Switzerland map. We need a new map, with major roads and railway network. I'll try to do it if I get some time but it may take month. --Saqib (talk) 21:19, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I updated the map. Globe-trotter (talk) 11:27, 16 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

This is just brilliant! I am wondering about two things:

1. I understand the red and yellow lines are for major roads. I guess with railway being the primary transportation for tourists in Switzerland, it would be good to include that network as well, to advise which connections are possible (and which aren't).
2. I think there is still enough space to mark airports, at least the main ones.

<3 PrinceGloria (talk) 07:25, 17 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I tried to add railway lines, but there are just too many of them in Switzerland. That's why I added the railway map to the Get In section. The airports are a good idea, I totally forgot about them. Globe-trotter (talk) 08:08, 17 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I actually proposed to have the railway lines marked exctly because there are so many. I'd move to mark those as they are mainlines with frequent and relatively high-speed traffic between major hubs. PrinceGloria (talk) 08:43, 17 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Tanks a lot to everybody for the great work!

I may add some remarks/ideas:

1) I would also support the idea to add major railway routes to the overview map. So far as I know, the majority of tourists travel by public transport in Switzerland. 2) And what about to even add the complementary bus network to the railway map? 3) May I also ask to add Brig to the overall map, especially since it is a major railway bifurcation and is located at the ottom of three major mountain ranges. 4) And almost the same about Andermatt, the virtual middle point of the Swiss Alps, as well as the mid point of the Glacier Express and bifurcation to the south-north routes. 5) Further it would also be helpful to visually designate the tunnels (on the road map, as well as for the large railway tunnels (as done on the railway map)). 6) At least this would give to the reader the ability to imagine where the mountains are. Or what about to even add a rough relief? Or at least some abstract mountains? ;-) I know, quite some many wishes, but who knows you are able of?! ;-)

One last question: Why is there the puzzling mixture of English and local naming? Graubünden instead of the Grisons (German version preferred). On the other side, Berne and Lucerne instead of Bern and Luzern (English versions preferred)? There may be some rational behind this, but to me it stays a inscrutable "mess". IMHO not really a consistant approach. ;-) Thanks anyhow! -- ZH8000 (talk) 18:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

And some lakes are missing ;-):

On the overall map: Lac de Joux, Lac de la Gruyère, Greifensee, Pfäffikersee (the are all larger or almost equal to the Ägerisee)

On the railway map: Lac de la Gruyère, Hallwilersee, Baldeggersee, Sihlsee (they are all larger than the Pfäffikersee)

Thanks again. -- ZH8000 (talk) 19:34, 24 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks to the good work of User:ZH8000, the "by train" part of the get around section is now rather long and detailed. We have in the case of other countries split off the details and linked to an article along the lines of rail travel in Switzerland (see rail travel in Germany for an example) where we can go in much greater detail. I do think it is or might soon be time to do the same for Switzerland. Best wishes Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:19, 13 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: @Gestumblindi: I still think this is worth doing, does one of you want to give it a try? Rail travel in Japan originated from making a new article out of the section from the country article and then expanding the former while trimming the latter. Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:16, 16 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I don't think I have time for that right now, as I'm still working on the articles in the Valais region, but I'll put it on my project list to work on when I have some time in the future. Drat70 (talk) 04:31, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

I agree, good idea, and I think it's quite possible that I will find some time for it in the near future, too (well, my main focus of activity is and will remain German-language Wikipedia, but I think Wikivoyage is a worthwile project Wikipedians should invest some time into, too :-) ) Gestumblindi (talk) 13:10, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

rail travel in Switzerland is now an article, mostly comprising of whatever was in the respective sections on the Switzerland article. It probably needs some restructuring to fit its new format as a separate article, so if anyone can help out with that, that'd be great. Drat70 (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think we need to talk about the definition of regions of Switzerland. I stumbled across Bernese Lowlands, which isn't a name actually in use in Switzerland, and boldly moved the article to Swiss Plateau (see talk page), but I agree with Traveler100 who recommended a discussion here (see my talk page) - there are wider issues. So, let's see...

First, a basic question: Am I right in assuming that the touristic regions of Switzerland as described in Switzerland and shown on the map there are defined by Wikivoyage editors, based on an evaluation of potential touristic interest - not following some established definition? Basically I don't have a problem with that; Wikivoyage needs to be useful for travelers / tourists, after all. So, using the 26 cantons would probably not be very useful, as some of them are very small, the borders intermingle, and in a region such as the "North East" (Wikivoyage region), it usually doesn't really matter for touristic purposes in what canton you are exactly, except if you're a history buff or particularly interested in local culture.

But I think the Wikivoyage regions should also reflect reality and usage in Switzerland to a reasonable extent. The "Bernese Lowlands" irked me especially. As I wrote on the talk page, there is no "Berner Unterland" (Bernese Lowlands) in actual Swiss usage that would correspond to the well-known Bernese Highlands. Sometimes, Berner Mittelland (Berne Plateau) is used in Switzerland, but only for parts of the Swiss Plateau that are actually part of the canton of Berne. One would never count Solothurn as part of the Berner Mittelland - as this town is capital of its own canton of Solothurn. So, placing Solothurn in so-called "Bernese Lowlands" will seem very strange to people from the region (one even might say "what, are the Bernese going to annex Solothurn now"? ;-) ). I see also no good reason to create a region "Basel and Aargau", as the connections of the canton of Aargau to Zürich and its western/southern neighbors (Solothurn, Lucerne) are rather closer; especially the eastern parts of the canton of Aargau are usually seen as part of the wider Zürich area.

I'm Swiss; if asked into what regions to divide Switzerland, my spontaneous answer would be something like:

• Northwestern Switzerland (cantons of Basel, Basel-Country, northern part of the canton of Solothurn)
• Western Switzerland (Romandie, the French-speaking part including Lake Geneva area)
• Swiss Plateau (only the central area of the yellow area in the geology map I included here; including parts of the cantons of Berne, Solothurn, Aargau, Lucerne, Zürich)
• Zürich: Either its own region, or include it in Swiss Plateau
• Bernese Highlands, similar to existing map
• Central Switzerland (similar to the existing Wikivoyage regions map, but not reaching that far into the northwest)
• Eastern Switzerland or Northeastern Switzerland, excluding the canton of Graubünden
• The following cantons as their own regions, as in the existing map:
  • Graubünden
  • Ticino
  • Valais

I think that would reflect everyday usage in Switzerland well. What do you think? Gestumblindi (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Looking at the previous discussion on this topic, it seems that it last happened in 2004 and not particularly extensive even then.

I'm just wondering if you took a look at the German Wikivoyage Swiss regions as well? Andrewssi2 (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Andrewssi2: Thanks for the pointer to the 2004 discussion (with a comment of 2010). It was really a rather limited discussion, and matters were, it seems to me, not really thought through. People wo participated in that discussion seem to be no longer very active, but I'll still try pinging them: @EvanProdromou, MarkJaroski, Globe-trotter: ... - I didn't have a look at the German Wikivoyage page previously, but catching up on that, I see that the list there is pretty close to my ideas. German Wikivoyage has a Romandie (Western Switzerland) article, and also defines Northwestern Switzerland similar to my list (including Aargau and the whole canton of Solothurn, however). I don't agree with the name "Espace Mittelland" as that name refers to one of the purely statistical NUTS regions. It's interesting that German Wikivoyage decided to display a map of the cantons after all (not of constructed regions), and defines the list just as possible examples for regions ("Feiner unterschieden werden können z. B. die folgenden Regionen, die sich teilweise auch überschneiden"). Gestumblindi (talk) 18:50, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Actually those guys were active some time ago on a different site. See here for context. In any case there is no problem to raise new suggestions.

I've actually travelled through Switzerland on numerous occasions, and even so due to the geographic complexity it is really difficult to make a judgement about what regions are best. If your suggestion is close to that of German Wikivoyage then you are probably onto a good thing. It would be good for others to comment. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 20:13, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

I'd say your proposed division makes sense.

Spontaneously I’d group Zürich with the Northeast; if I remember correctly all of that is a remarkably flat part of Switzerland. Or how would it sound to create a big “North” article together with Basel & Aargau? ϒpsilon (talk) 20:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Ypsilon: Zürich is difficult... it's an important area with unique characteristics, so it makes sense to treat it as its own region, as is currently done, I think. Geologically, it's part of the "Mittelland" (Swiss Plateau) that stretches from the southwest to the northeast of Switzerland (yellow area in the geology map), that would be the "remarkably flat part of Switzerland" you mention (well, not really flat, but dominated by lower hilly country). A big "North" article... well, I don't know... it wouldn't really be a traditional division. On the map, cantons such as Appenzell and Jura are both in the "North" of Switzerland, but very different in language, culture, geology... nearly in everything, except being part of that strangely varied little country of Switzerland ;-) Gestumblindi (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm also Swiss. Gestumblindi has asked me to come and give my input.

I think we can all agree that Bernese Lowlands is not commonly used as a term (as a matter of fact, I'm not sure I've heard it before). I also think however, that regions in the context of this site as a travel guide, probably have to base on what makes sense for travellers rather than what is commonly used by Swiss people.

I think the list Gestumblindi drafted makes sense. I am however not happy with the name Swiss Plateau for the region that was formerly Bernese Lowlands, as this encompasses a much bigger region and might be confusing to readers who are already familiar with that term. For instance have a look at the Wikipedia article, it goes as far as Geneva.

I am not sure though what another good name would be. As a reference, there's also the http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-sg/destinations/regions.html (As seen by hovering over the map on the right), and they call that region 'Bern Region'. That would be an acceptable option I think. --Drat70 (talk) 02:09, 29 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: This discussion seems to have stopped, but I think we really need to come to a consensus here and do something about it. As for now the Region article of Bernese Lowlands leads to an article called Swiss Plateau, which might be quite confusing to the reader. If nobody is willing to commit to redo the regions, I'd suggest we agree on a name for that article and make it consistent over this article, the region article and the map so that at least there is some consistency until somebody has the time to come along and redo the regions. The suggestions for names for that article so far have been the original Bernese Lowlands, Swiss Plateau as changed recently or something like Bern Region as suggested by me. What do you think? Drat70 (talk) 00:33, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: Thanks for the reminder. I think that your suggestion "Bern region" makes sense. We would also need a new map based on the above list (with "Bern region" and Zürich as its own region). German-language Wikipedia has a page for map requests, I'll ask the map experts there whether they could create such a map for Wikivoyage... Gestumblindi (talk) 21:35, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: I have now made a simplified map request: No longer including a "Swiss Plateau" area, staying a bit closer to the current map, e.g. leaving the whole canton of Lucerne in "Central Switzerland". What do you think? Gestumblindi (talk) 21:53, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: That looks good. However, wikivoyage has its own template for maps that should be followed (see here: Wikivoyage:Regions_map_Expedition) There's also a .svg already available of the current map [[1]], so if nobody offers their help there, I think it shouldn't be too hard to adapt that one ourselves. (It would just be a question of modifying the borders). However, one thing that is in my opinion just as important is that all the region articles have to be adapted. For instance the Lake Geneva and Jura Mountains and Fribourg have to be merged, so that it is consistent. Drat70 (talk) 00:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: Thank you, I've now mentioned the template and the SVG map on the Kartenwünsche page. - Yes, some merges/changes will be needed. By the way, looking at Jura Mountains and Fribourg, there's another error... "The Jura mountains cut through five Swiss cantons: Vaud, Neuchatel, Fribourg, Bern, and Jura" - the Jura mountains substantially reach into at least three more cantons (Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau). Gestumblindi (talk) 00:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: For the Jura article: go ahead and edit it then. Concerning the map, if we don't manage to find anyone to help us with that, I will have a go at it myself. Drat70 (talk) 03:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: I made some modification to the old map after the requirements you put in the map request. It's a bit rough, (for instance I drew the borders of the Fricktal by hand) but I think we can use it to further discuss this until maybe something better comes along. Do those regions correspond to what you imagine or did I miss something?

Drat70 (talk) 14:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: Yes, that map pretty much corresponds to what I imagine! :-) A small thing... The small part of "Region Berne" reaching into Northwestern Switzerland between the letters "a" and "n" in "Switzerland" is actually north of the Jura (the municipality of Kienberg), so I would include it in Northwestern Switzerland. And then... I wonder, maybe it would be possible and helpful to superimpose the borders of the actual cantons in the map? I'm not sure, maybe it's not needed and would make the map too confusing, but it would be interesting to see how it looks that way... Gestumblindi (talk) 13:05, 16 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: I changed what you suggested with Kienberg now belonging to Northwestern Switzerland.

Concerning the canton borders on the map. I think that shouldn't be too hard to do, we could just take the borders from the corresponding Wikipedia map and overlay it. However I don't think that's a good idea. Political borders are not always relevant to travellers and especially in a case like Switzerland, where one could go from one canton to the next without even noticing it, I am not sure how the canton borders would be useful for the traveller. It would also make the map quite noisy IMO.

Let's not lose the momentum and try to get this change of regions done before it gets forgotten again. The following needs to be done:

* Lake Geneva and Jura Mountains and Fribourg need to be merged into Western Switzerland. Since both of those articles have quite little content, I suggest that we merge the content into one article and then in the future if there's more content, subregions can be added. For the old articles, I suggest that we leave redirects behind on the old pages.

* Region Berne, Northwestern Switzerland and Zurich_(region) need somebody going through them and reshuffling some of the cities that switched region. Furthermore Swiss Plateau needs to be renamed to Region Berne and Basel and Aargau to Northwestern Switzerland.

* Northeastern Switzerland needs to be renamed to Eastern Switzerland.

The rest should be okay as it is. For all regions which are renamed the {{IsPartOf|}} of all the destinations has to be changed. The same goes for cities and destinations which change region.

That should be it. Did I forget anything? Does anyone still have objections to this or can we get started? Drat70 (talk) 13:39, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: I think this sounds fine! But let's wait a few days for other opinions before getting started, I'd say... Gestumblindi (talk) 19:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think the regional division is fine the way it looks now. As for superimposing cantonal borders, I also have to say it does not provide much of a conceivable benefit imho and only makes the map more confusing. Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:24, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

Well, you may be right. It was just a thought as for us Swiss, cantonal borders are still very relevant. Living in Switzerland, it can make a huge difference in what canton you are, due to the federalist system. After all, the map in United States of America also shows the state borders superimposed on the regions - but well, Switzerland is somewhat smaller ;-). And I agree that for the traveller, particularly tourists spending a short time in Switzerland only, cantonal borders aren't that important. Gestumblindi (talk) 11:17, 19 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: Just a small update: I changed the names on the map for those regions including 'Switzerland' (e.g. Northwestern Switzerland to North West) so that the names better fit on the map. This was how it was done on the old map and I think it makes sense not to repeat Switzerland all over the place. What do you think? This would of course not affect the names of the articles.Drat70 (talk) 00:49, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: I agree, no need to repeat "Switzerland" on the map :-) Gestumblindi (talk) 20:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

A short update on this: I have started reshuffling the regions. For now I am doing changes which I think won't confuse the reader too much even if the map is not changed for now (so that I can do it in batches). For now I changed Northeastern Switzerland to Eastern Switzerland and by doing this I also noticed that there's a lot of wrongly categorised cities which actually belong in different categories, so I tried to fix this as well (In case somebody wondered why I am moving all those cities around). I try to clean up as much as I can, but I fear I might leave some old links behind, so if anyone with some time and knowledge of the area wants to go through them again, that'd be appreciated. I'll probably continue reorganising the Zurich region and the Berne region before then switching the map and region list over completely. Any inputs on this? Drat70 (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:53, 4 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Gestumblindi: The update of the regions should now be done. Hope I didn't mess anything up in the process. On a related note: A lot of the regions are quite empty, maybe that's a project for the future. Drat70 (talk) 05:49, 4 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Obviously, I am a bit late for this fast change. Though, I am not generally against these exclusively by wikivoyage invented regions, please also consider the following remarks:

• Even though the proposed names of touristic regions in Switzerland may be useful for a faster overview of Switzerland for any short-term tourist, they are (so I suppose) a fully wikivoayge invention and never used officially; neither politically, of course, nor by official tourstic offices. So in other words, "brand" recognition is quite low. Hwoever, some of them are also used outside of wikivoyage, i.e. by touristic offices (such as Central S, North-West S., North-East S, Valais, Ticino). I would propose to roughly follow them for the sake of simple usage and especially easy brand recognition instead of inventing new terms.
• Further, some namings are unfortunate: What you call East(ern) Switzerland is being coherently called North-Eastern Switzerland (in contrast to Graubünden, which is also often synonymously called the South-Eastern Switzerland) for centuries. Traditionally, the east, however, consistenly refers to both, the north-eastern region and the Grisons.
• West: The now missing distinction between Jura (mountainous, mostly rural) and the previously adequately called Lake Geneva region (rather flat, very urban), clearly dominated by its lake, is at least unfortunate, IMHO. Further, a very distinctive and Switzerland-characterizing term, beside the Alps, would be missing.
• I do not understand why the map does only show major roads, but no major railway connections, which are at least as important to tourists, since the majority of tourists visits Switzerland by public transport! Even every third Swiss commute to work by PT. And even further, to the uneducated visitor the map looks very strange, since the roads suddenly end without any obvious reason (also because a rough topological map (major aspects of Switzerland from a vistors view?!) is missing). I think, the major railway routes, especially through the Alps, are a MUST for such a map. These would be much more informative than the invented regions. And as a consequence, major railroad conjuctions (mostly cities) as well, such as Brig, Spiez, Arth-Goldau, Olten, Airolo and Göschenen (both ends of the major road and rail route through Switzerland and the Alps), Andermatt (topgraphic center cross of Switzerland), and the border towns (other major entry points!) Chiasso, Domodossola, and perhaps Buchs SG should be part of the map. Not to speak about some major passes: Sankt Gotthard, Simplon, Grand San Bernard, San Barnardino, just to name the major road passes through the Swiss Alps.
• A map's major purpose is to provide orientation! Missing major information does not help at all, rather to the contrary.
• Regarding the usage of the canton's names: Do not underestimate the importance about their (unconscious) knowledge/recognition!! Just to name a few important aspects for tourists:
  • The many fare networks are always shaped by the respective canton(s)' borders.
  • Business hours (e.g. of shops), especially during holidays, are mainly a cantonal subject, since holidays are mainly a cantonal subject.
  • Hymonyms of places (places with the same name), are always distinguished by the cantons abbreviations!
  • Laws differ by cantons.
  • Cultural differences are mainly based on the canton, much less by regions. For example: Appenzell and the even encompasing St. Gallen is absolutely not the same.
• I do NOT say that the simplification from the many cantons is not useful, not at all, at least not for newcomers, but to fully omit the term of cantons and their names will produce much more confusion to tourists when they become confronted with them, and they inescapably will, than to name them also, though in a second step. Especially important/helpful for tourists not travelling by groups who need to orient themselves by locally available information! Recognition of canton names (in their local variations) would be an immense help, I suppose.
• Please add at least Appenzell and Bellinzona to the map.

Thanks for your appreciation! -- 15:17, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

@83.150.11.68: Hi, and thank you for your input. This does indeed come a bit late, so please understand that I will not go and change up the regions again, but if there is new consensus, and there is someone willing to do it, then I won't object to it of course. Now, you do raise some very legitimate concerns, so let me address some of those:

• concerning the names of the regions: The latest change of names was actually partially an attempt to get the names closer to what is used by Switzerland Tourism. For instance the region that we renamed from Northeastern Switzerland to Eastern Switzerland is actually called Eastern Switzerland by Switzerland Tourism: [[2]] and if you look at the map they post, it encompasses roughly the same area as our region, excluding the Grisons.
• You mention missing distinction between Jura and Lake Geneva region and also the cantons. Well the cantons one is determined by the fact that subregions are usually limited to 10 (or something around there) per article, so making a region for each of the 26 cantons would not have been a viable option (Not even mentioning that it would make the map very noisy, and there's already a separate map with the cantons only in the article). But those could be subregions of the regions. For now, there is just too little content in those pages to further subdivide them, but I imagine once the Western Switzerland article is more developed and there's more destination article, it would make very much sense to make a region map (such as I have attempted to do for Valais for instance) and make new region articles, maybe splitting it up in Lake Geneva, Jura and Fribourg. Or otherwise even split it up into the 5 cantons. The same goes for Eastern Switzerland, I do agree that it would make much sense to make subregions splitting up St. Gall, the two Appenzells, Thurgau and Schaffhausen, as as you say those places have very distinct cantonal character. However as of now, there is just so little content in the main article, that this doesn't make sense in my opinion, as that would just result in a handful of outline articles.
• You mention the map. I totally agree. The map should in my opinion favour railway lines over major roads (which I assume are the Nationalstrassen). Now I adapted the map from the old map and I have to admit that my map making skills are not great. Taking the old map and changing the regions is as far as I can go myself. Adding railway lines is not something I think I can do, because it would have to be imported from another map, when I tried doing that it would include all the minor railway lines as well, making the map very noisy. If that is something you know how to do, please go ahead, I think that'd be a great addition to the map. The svg file is on wikicommons (it has been included in this discussion further up).
• As to the addition of the cities. Yes, I agree some more should be added. I don't fully agree with your list (for instance I think 'Visp' instead of 'Brig' should be added and I also think Interlaken for instance is much more relevant to the traveler than Spiez. And again I am a bit scared that adding too many details will clutter up the map and make it very noisy. If I find some time, I will however add some of those towns. (Note that Bellinzona is already on the map).
• I agree, a topological map would be a great addition to the article. Why don't you go ahead and add one?

As a side remark. As you have surely noticed most of the region articles (probably actually all of them) do not contain much information and the same goes for most of the destination articles about Switzerland. Overall I feel that the content in wikivoyage articles about Switzerland is greatly lacking. I feel that the structure is going to grow with more information, as things like regional maps inside the region articles and information about the cantons (inside the region articles) will greatly improve the ease of orientation for the traveler unfamiliar with Switzerland. As such, if you can, please do help add more information to those region articles.

Thanks Drat70 (talk) 01:01, 5 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

So, Switzerland is currently rated as "outline". What would have to be done to change that? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:18, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

One of the big things is that most of the region articles are rated as "outline" as well. And I'm not quite sure whether I understand Wikivoyage:Country_guide_status right, but shouldn't they be mostly "usable" before this article can be upgraded? Drat70 (talk) 01:38, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

In the past we have created nifty little checklists (like this) for which region needs what to be promoted to a higher status. But seeing as there is a region discussion ongoing, maybe that should wait until that is resolved... Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

As suggested by Hobbitschuster above, I made a table below here which we can work on in order to upgrade the status of the Switzerland article. It looks like there's a lot to be done, especially on the Regions and Other Destinations. Cities are all good already. I will work on adding comments on what needs to be done in future. Drat70 (talk) 08:39, 14 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:04, 14 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I just discovered that the regions actually don't need to be at 'usable'. Don't know what I was thinking when I first read the criteria. That should make this a lot easier.

This article now fulfils (imo) the criteria for usable status, hence objective reached. However I will leave the table here as a reference for further improvement. A lot still needs to be done at regional level. Drat70 (talk) 09:58, 1 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Let's reuse these tables to get to track the progress of getting this to a guide article. Here's a copy of the criteria from Wikivoyage:Country_guide_status:

Has links to the country's major cities and other destinations (usable status or better), a valid regional structure, and well developed prose in all the standard sections. All immediate subregions :must be usable status or better. Layout closely matches the manual of style. All important ways to get in should be detailed, along with some suggestions for where to go next, :and thorough information on getting around. At least 2–3 good-quality photos accompany the article; preferably showing famous or important attractions.

Drat70 (talk) 07:40, 24 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

See: Wikivoyage:Region_guide_status

For usable status: "Has links to the region's major cities and other destinations (the most important of which must be at usable status or better), and a Get in section describing all of the typical ways to get there. The most prominent attractions are identified with directions."

See Wikivoyage:City_guide_status

As the main article is now 'usable', we need to go more into depth in the city level and region articles to improve on the overall Switzerland guide. A lot of the bottom-level articles still lack detail and most region articles are even worse. In a lot of places, important towns and destinations are missing articles, but I think the main focus, for now, should be to get the existing articles up to a better standard. --Drat70 (talk) 05:01, 7 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Note that numbers in the tables are not dynamically calculated and must be manually updated. Last updated on 29 August 2017.

Click on number to get an updated list of pages by status. (Note sometime the link just sits there, usually due to the database updating, come back in 10 minutes.)

Remember a reasonable Get in section, as well as listings, is needed to make usable.

Other tools

Scan for dead links

Some minor milestones

• 2017/01/17 There are now more usable than outline city articles
• 2017/03/23 All articles have now at least one 'sleep' listing
• 2017/04/18 All articles have now at least one 'eat' listing
• 2017/07/21 All the main region articles (highest level) now have either a static map or a temporary dynamic map. (Note: The subregions on the map are usually drawn by canton borders and might not always be ideal, it's just temporary to have an aid to orientation until (if at all) we can make a better map and think more about subregions which make sense.)
• 2017/08/22 All articles still at outline have now both do and see listings
• 2017/08/29 Finally there, all city articles are now usable or better

So can you explain why the Petscan reveals (as of this writing) 32 outline city articles of which 14 only need "check" (i.e. they have at least one listing each in the searched for categories) yet 19 have no see and 18 have no do listing? Is my math of or is there something wrong with the scan or what's happening here? Similarly, the "needs only" section sums up to more than 40 instead of 32. Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:20, 23 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Hobbitschuster: That is because for an article to be usable it doesn't necessarily need See and Do listings. The criteria just says: At least the most prominent attraction or activity is identified with directions., which can be either See or Do. In fact some smaller city article might have a combined See and Do section. You can see that if you look at the PetScan under Templates&Links where the Do and See templates are listed under Has any of these templates:, hence the numbers don't add up. This had me quite confused as well when I first started using this table. Drat70 (talk) 00:56, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

To get to the next milestone; there are still two articles left that have no eat listing; those are: Val Lumnezia and Verzasca Valley. They seem to have restaurants, but they have no listings for them (and neither do they in any other language edition). Let's change that! Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'll get to it over this next week! Thanks to you also for adding so many listings to Swiss articles recently, we are getting quite close to having only usable and above articles now! Drat70 (talk) 08:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:42, 16 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

The "By car" section seems really long, especially with the long list of traffic penalties. Would anyone object to me moving a big chunk of this into a Driving in Switzerland article , prominently linked from the "By car" section? This would follow the model of the Driving in Iceland section. Ground Zero (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I think that's no bad idea at all. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Good idea (and probably for other articles as well) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:54, 13 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Done. Please make any needed improvements you can see. Thanks. Ground Zero (talk)

Excellent decision. The section was disproportionately long for the article as a whole. Quarkosaurus (talk) 12:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

An anonymous editor has added some detail back in, which is repeated in the driving article. Is this so important that it should be in both places? Or should it be removed from here? Ground Zero (talk) 23:57, 31 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I think some judicious trimming in the main article can do no major harm, but please wait for others to weigh in. If I follow this talk page correctly, that same IP has previously weighed in on this talk page, so maybe you'd wish to ask them as well. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:00, 1 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Best thing would be to ask the editor why they did that. User:83.150.11.68 , can you please comment on this diff? Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

I have trimmed the section judiciously (in my opinion). Quarkosaurus (talk) 10:32, 2 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

The public holidays section is useless to the average traveller, who wants to know if they can visit a museum and a restaurant on a given day. All the extra material about recognition and observation is just confusing. Can someone re-write this to something which is practical and easily understood? Quarkosaurus (talk) 12:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I've tried that a while ago by only mentioning those which are observed on a federal level. (See here, probably can be even restricted by taking out those which are on a Sunday) I think that makes more sense, as there is really a lot of difference between cantons and even towns. However after this a lot more have been added back by @ZH8000:, bringing it to where it is now. I think there is two options here: either we restrict this to the most common ones (maybe those observed on federal level, or those observed in all but a couple places) or we have to list all of them, which would bring the section to something like this: w:Public_holidays_in_Switzerland Public holidays in Switzerland (Wikipedia). I personally favour the first choice, we could then go and add the canton specific holidays to the region articles. I think either way would work as long as it is consistent. Drat70 (talk) 00:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you that we should take your first option to simplify, with a short mention that regional differences exists in the main text and any regional differences restricted to regional articles. Quarkosaurus (talk) 09:45, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

There is the problem that the validity of certain holidays is (mostly) based on Cantons, whereas our regional subdivision is not. Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:06, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Northwestern Switzerland can mention "atypical" holidays for Basel-Stadt and -Landschaft and relevant parts of Aargau, Region Berne can mention those observed exceptionally in the relevant parts of Bern and Solothurn, etc. I don't really see the problem. Quarkosaurus (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

"those observed in all but a couple places" sounds best to me. Except for National Day (first of August) there are no (official) federal level holidays. Those listed by Drat70 are indeed observed everywhere, but only "by happenstance" - in theory, cantons don't have to observe them. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:24, 2 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's actually similar to the situation in Germany. Except for October 3 (Day of German Unity), there is no holiday enshrined in federal law. Any state can chose to celebrate any given holiday or chose not to. This includes Christmas and New Year's. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:32, 2 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Anyway from a traveler's point of view it doesn't matter whether the holidays are defined on a federal or a cantonal level, but more that they are observed. So it seems that there's consensus that we are going to simplify the list on this page and add canton specific information to the region articles, unless someone else comes up with objections. @ZH8000: do you want to give your inputs? Drat70 (talk) 00:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

I have now simplified the list, editing out all holidays which fall on Sundays as well as all holidays which are not observed by a majority of the cantons. Drat70 (talk) 05:27, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

While they may not be relevant in terms of shops being open or closed, they might be interesting for the cultural observances and the like. Are there for instance Easter Sunday traditions worth observing in Switzerland? Hobbitschuster (talk) 17:49, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

But shouldn't we separate the two? I mean what this section aims to do is to give a practical guide to the traveler on which days shops etc might be closed. In my opinion festivities and observances which might be interesting to tourists should go into a different section. For instance I mentioned the festivities for Corpus Christi under Events for the Valais page. Drat70 (talk) 00:50, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

If you look at the USA article, holidays where stuff is closed and days of celebration that have nothing to do with stuff being closed (e.g. Thanksgiving and Super Bowl Sunday) are listed in the same section. I can see the argument for both sides, though. Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:14, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

It seems that most Swiss articles ignore Wikivoyage:Currency's advice that "The three letter ISO 4217 currency codes... should not be used either in listings or in text, but exceptions can be made as needed to avoid ambiguity." As there is no longer a French franc, and ambiguity with the African or Pacific francs is not a real concern, I have begun changing Swiss articles over to "Fr". These sources indicate that this is the standard notation for the franc in Switzerland:

• Oanda.com: "The symbol used for the Franc is Fr."
• Wikipedia: "The ISO code of the currency used by banks and financial institutions is CHF, although "Fr." is used by most businesses and advertisers"

Our guide should be what travellers will see in hotels, shops and restaurants on a day-to-day basis. While the financial sector uses the ISO code, CHF, that's not who we are writing for. Bureaux de change use the ISO code, too, but those travellers who still use bureaux will encounter that only once or twice in their trip - usually not on a daily basis. And of course, with the ready availability of ATMs in Switzerland, many modern travellers don't bother with bureaux anymore. Ground Zero (talk) 20:58, 17 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

It's been brought to my attention that the format should be "Fr. x", not "x Fr". Ground Zero (talk) 01:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I don't think we should use the period. We normally omit unnecessary punctuation, especially in listings. Powers ^(talk) 21:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: is Swiss, and explained on my talk page that this is the format used in Switzerland. I don't think Wikivoyage policy lets us develop our own format for currency symbols. Ground Zero (talk) 22:07, 19 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, Fr without a dot is not widely used. The common writing options are simply x.- (by far the most common in shops etc, e.g. [3]), Fr. x (e.g. [4]) or CHF x (e.g. [5]). WV:$ says that we should use the "currency notation that travellers will encounter when they arrive at the destination in question" and that "We also adopt some widely used abbreviations, with whatever formatting convention comes with them". @Ground Zero: mentioned that CHF x might not be a good solution and I don't think we want to adopt a solution without currency (x.-), so I think Fr. x is the only viable alternative.

Either way, I went through all the articles and changed all prices (or at least all those I could fine) from a variety of different notations to Fr. x. So if we were to decide on another option it would be much easier to replace it this time, as it will be simple matter of search and replace. Drat70 (talk) 01:02, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Frankly, I fail to see what's so bad about "CHF x" Hobbitschuster (talk) 01:25, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

The ISO codes are, well, codes. As I understand it, Wikivoyage aims to be less formal. So if "Fr." is commonly used, and is not ambiguous (which I think "x.-" would be), then I don't know why we wouldn't use it. Ground Zero (talk) 01:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the period is an integral part of the abbreviation. We can discuss it on Wikivoyage talk:Currency if someone feels strongly about our policy requiring it. Powers ^(talk) 19:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

"Our guide should be what travellers will see in hotels, shops and restaurants on a day-to-day basis" - I would say the most common thing travellers see in these places is CHF X,- (i.e. there is plenty of use outside currency exchanges). I don't think we should remove it just because it happens to also be an ISO 4217 code. Quarkosaurus (talk) 11:21, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

It seems that there are several notations used, and I don't know if there is an objective way to determine which is most common. Different travellers may have different experiences depending on where they shop. WV:$ starts off saying, "Ideally, we want something that is easily readable by an English speaker, conveniently short, and easy for an editor to use; of course those goals sometimes conflict." So the argument against CHF would be that it is more formal because it is an ISO code, and WV aims to be informal. Since "Fr." And "/-" are also commonly used, they should be considered as well. I don't care for "/-" because I don't think that the meaning it obvious to someone who hasn't been to Switzerland but is planning a trip there (aside from Kenyans and Tanzanians, who would recognize it as a currency symbol). Ground Zero (talk) 19:04, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I think CHF is fine, unambiguous and says "Swiss Francs" clearer than any alternative Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:26, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

In my experience (I'm Swiss, living in Switzerland) the Swiss tend to use CHF when the context is more formal, especially for bills. For example, the bills of my phone provider or my health insurance use CHF (well, virtually all the bills I get). In shops or for advertising, Fr. is often used, but also often no symbol at all, as it's apparently just assumed that the currency is Swiss franc. Gestumblindi (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I also think CHF would be a good solution, it is indeed used quite frequently. If the alternative is Fr without a period, then I would suggest using CHF instead, as that is an abbreviation which is actually used. I don't think not using a symbol at all is a good solution, as this might confuse travelers who expect some sort of indication of the currency used. Drat70 (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

"So the argument against CHF would be that it is more formal because it is an ISO code" - that is exactly the part I disagree with. It has plenty of informal use on the street in Switzerland. It didn't change and become "formal" just because a standards' agency adopted it. I'd like to point out here as well that this is a different situation to other countries - I would not suggest "GBP" be used in the UK or "TRY" in Turkey because in those countries the use is only in formal contexts. CHF is easily readable, conveniently short, easy for editors to use and, most importantly, commonly seen everywhere in Switzerland. Quarkosaurus (talk) 08:58, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Let's not forget Wikivoyage policy. It starts by saying: "The three letter ISO 4217 currency codes... should not be used either in listings or in text, but exceptions can be made as needed to avoid ambiguity."

"Fr." is commonly used and not ambiguous. You can change everything to CHF if you want, but I do not think that it reflects Wikivoyage policy. Ground Zero (talk) 12:46, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I think you are misreading policy. I don't think it can be interpreted as saying "don't ever use anything even remotely looking like ISO codes no matter how locally prevalent" Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm not reading it that way. If there were no other locally-prevalent notations, then of course we would use the ISO code. But since there is another locally-prevalent notation that is not the ISO code, I think think we can safely use that. Ground Zero (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: RTFM!!! The public holidays paragraph has a link (for ever) to the official summary of all cantonal public holidays by the Federal Department of Justice and Police!!!! See page 28 under the title Jours considérés comme jours fériés légaux. And please stop edit-warring. Thank you. -- ZH8000 (talk) 04:46, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Drat70: And the best indication (only) to verify them is to look up the business times of the official offices, schools or the local public transport(business times of shops are totally irrelevant these days),, for example here in Sion on page 9. It's is called "Fetes"! And the list of the local public transport in Sion matches the page 29 by the DFPJ by 100%. You obviously do not have any children. - qed - -- ZH8000 (talk) 05:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict)

@ZH8000: Hi, I'm not sure whether you have seen what I wrote on your talk page User_talk:ZH8000, where I addressed the issue with that link already, but I will repeat it again here.

Public holidays are determined by the canton, and not by the federal government (which published the link you posted). This is also mentioned in the document you cited : In der Schweiz werden die gesetzlichen Feiertage und die Tage, die wie gesetzliche Feiertage behandelt werden, mit Ausnahme des 1. August, durch die Kantone bestimmt. / En Suisse, la détermination des jours fériés légaux ou considérés comme tels relève, à l'exception du 1er août, de la compétence des cantons.

Which means that the official authority on this is the canton of Valais, which have their own website with official public holidays: https://www.vs.ch/web/spt/jours-feries . When the two disagree, I would argue that the canton of Valais one should be the correct one, as they have the authority to determine the public holidays (other than 1 August). That list (you have to open the pdf on that website to see it), does not mention 2 January, Easter Monday, With Monday and St. Stephen's Day.

While it's true that some of those (mostly Easter Monday and With Monday in my experience) are observed for most parts, this is in no way universal and is definitely not the case for 2 January and 26 December. For instance look at the website of this shopping centre: https://metropolecentre.ch/ At the bottom right corner of the website, it lists the public holidays it is closed at and other than With Monday, it's open at all those days.

I mentioned all those details at the region page Valais, according to the consensus from the discussion higher up on this website. I pinged you several time during that discussion, but you have never replied, however, feel free to give your input, we can always change it, if there is new consensus.

I will not revert your edit again for now, but please do participate in the discussion here, so that we can sort this out. As long as you don't reply to your talk page or discussions here, it is a bit hard to sort this out.

Drat70 (talk) 05:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Just saw your last comment. I don't think business times are irrelevant. From the travelers point of view, it doesn't matter whether schools or the town hall is open, what matters is opening hours of shops etc. and public transport. As far as I know, CFF follow the fixed list of public holidays given in the paragraph, if the local transport sedunois follows different holidays, I think that would be good to mention in the Sion article. Drat70 (talk) 05:13, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

You will find everywhere in Valais that these days are considered as public holidays by schools, official offices, museums, and any local public transports, at least. Just because there some shops open does not tell anything about the Public status of the day. In Valais many shops are opened even on Sundays. So therefore, business times by shops are hardly a relevant reference. -- ZH8000 (talk) 05:19, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I don't dispute that those days are holidays for schools and official offices, I myself went to school in Valais for 15 years. However, I still fail to see how school openings or openings of official offices are of any concern to the traveler Tcf. As someone passing through Valais you are more likely to go want to eat somewhere or buy stuff than apply for a building permit or go to school. You make it sound like it's very much common to have shops open on public holidays, but that is not true. There are special rules for touristic areas (such as many mountain resorts in Valais, e.g. Zermatt, Crans-Montana or Saas-Fee to open on public holidays and Sundays, but this does not apply to the towns in the valley, such as the link I gave for a shopping centre in Sion, where all shops except maybe those in railway stations are closed on Sundays and holidays. If we go after the logic that days at which schools and official offices are closed are automatically holidays, then we also have to declare the whole week between Christmas and New Year, as well as the Friday after Ascension as public holidays, because most offices and schools will be closed then. In my opinion we should go with the correct official holidays for this general page and give all those details and nuances on the Valais page. Drat70 (talk) 06:04, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

The single biggest problem with this article is that it often forgets it is intended for a traveller (particularly with the previous versions of the transport and holiday sections). Drat70's suggestion is more useful to the average traveller. Quarkosaurus (talk) 10:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I just want to point out that when government offices are closed is important information if a visitor wants to go to a post office or somewhere where they can renew a visa or something like that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree about the government offices, and I do agree that we should probably mention this somewhere. I would argue about mentioning it in Valais though, I already mention there that services will be closed, but I will get on with adding a bit more details on this in the coming days. I am just against putting these details in the main Switzerland article, as there are just so many regional differences, it will turn out to be a mess (Switzerland has 26 cantons with their own holidays and customs, and on top of that there are regional and communal holidays). I just finished adding all the holidays to the regions a couple weeks ago, and if you scroll through them, you'll see there are so many different variations. Drat70 (talk) 00:54, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Your argument makes sense to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:30, 25 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

That makes sense. Keep this article brief and go into details in regional articles. That's exactly what they are there for. Quarkosaurus (talk) 09:49, 25 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well, schedules and business hours by public transport is indeed a very strong aspect of a tourist's daily life, even in Valais ;-) The official document by the Federal Department of Justice and Police "only" publishes what they got reported by the respective cantonal authorities. So even the Valais authorities claim them as reported. And just because some retail shops are opened on these public holidays does not make it a huge difference to other public holidays. All Valais public transport are following them, all government offices will be closed, physicians won't open their practices, banks will be closed (no money transfers possible), lawyer's offices will be closed, etc. So I still object to this conclusion. -- ZH8000 (talk) 13:58, 14 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

If I am not mistaken the only thing keeping Switzerland from being a "guide" is the sorry state of many of the sub-regions, right? Let's tackle this next! Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:56, 22 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, definitely the next project after I nudge those last few articles to usable. However, this is going to be much harder than bringing it to usable, as a lot of the regions are missing important destinations which need whole new articles. Anyway, we can reuse the tables further up this page to track the progress. Drat70 (talk) 01:05, 23 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Tables are now updated. The important one is the one with the subregions. This is going to be a long process. Drat70 (talk) 09:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Just a question, how workable do you think consolidating some of the smaller cantons into "city" articles would be? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's an interesting idea. I think this is something which is already happening on its own. Let me illustrate what I mean: Northwestern_Switzerland has a subregion Basel-Stadt, which is a (half-)canton. I think it's important to show this subregion on the map in the region article, so that people know where the canton borders lie (if you look at the last posts on the region discussion from last year that was something which was requested), but I don't ever see there being a need to create a Basel-Stadt region article, as whatever lies in this very small canton can go into the city article. I see the same could happen for other cantons. For instance Appenzell is probably going to remain the only article in the canton, and attractions in this region but outside the town can probably be put within the nearby section. So I think this is something which will naturally happen, and which is a good thing in my opinion. I just want to stress again, that it's not my intention to create region articles for each canton, that would just spread relatively little information over an unnecessary number of hierarchical layers. I think for the time being, the amount of regions we have for Switzerland should be sufficient. Drat70 (talk) 07:10, 2 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

The currency is spelled with a capital R in German, because it is a noun. Should it also be spelled with a capital R here? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:52, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

My thinking was that this is English Wikivoyage, so English capitalization would apply, but then I realize that this sentence was identifying the nomenclature in each of the Swiss languages, none of which is English. You're right, and I've changed it back. Ground Zero (talk) 01:52, 3 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

A "modulo 0.25" (I suspect rounding was meant) and the "WV:TDF" hh:mm format (not found in TDF for durations) was suggested. But what format is 3.6hr or 6.52 hr? 3hr 36min and 6 hr 31.2 min? I suspect the latter is meant to be 6 hr 52 min (which I'd rather state as 7hr), but what is the former supposed to mean? All these times should be checked and written in a comprehensible and unambiguous way. --LPfi (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

I agree; that's what I meant in my corrective edit. "6 hr 52 min" is the accepted, unambiguous way of writing the journey would take 6 hr 52 min. Ibaman (talk) 13:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yes, time indication is written with a ":" delimiter, as requested in WV:tdf. WV:tdf does not request any format for durations. Duration usually use a decimal point (e.g. 0.5 hr for half an hour, or 0.25 for a quarter), or uses also the colon, if you want to indicate hh:mm(:ss) (hours:minutes:seconds). The latter is especially used, if you want to be very precise.

In the discussed text, "we" so far used decimal point – and I propose – rounding to a quarter of an hour (".25", ".5", ".75", or o'clock) in order to keep it intentionally imprecise and therefore to reduce the frequency of updating the respective figures all the time after every timetable change, which most of the time changes travel times just for a few minutes. This reduces potential inaccurancies after a slighty adjusted timetable change. And this way it also used e.g. in Germany#By_train. Is this acceptable? -- ZH8000 (talk) 00:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

You're right: WV:tdf does not specify how to express duration. I thought it did, but I see that I was mistaken. Sorry about that. The style guide should be clear on this.

The most common way in English Wikivoyage is "3 hr 15 min" or "3¼ hr". Both are commonly used. "3.25 hours" is very unusual in English, and I don't think would be as easily understood by anglophone readers. Ground Zero (talk) 01:01, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

That latter format is also more easily misunderstood, as in the 6.52, which hardly is meant as a decimal value. And I really would not trust 3.6 hr. Also 6:52 is problematic, in context where both times and durations are given: no visual clue to which is what. So yes, "3 hr 15 min" or "3¼ hr". --LPfi (talk) 05:33, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I would prefer the latter one ("3¼ hr"), since "3 hr 15 min" again could imply too much precisement. Can we agrree on this format? -- ZH8000 (talk) 16:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

• For the record, I must express that, for disambiguating purposes, "3 hr 15 min" is the only acceptable format, in my opinion. But that's just my opinion. Ibaman (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

What's that got to do with disambigs? Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:04, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@ZH8000:, @Ibaman: can you please come to an agreement, I think the state to which it was now reverted leaves something to be desired... Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

@ZH8000:, please review WV:tdf and come to an agreement on any changes on the talk page before editing this article again. Ground Zero (talk) 00:20, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I did not see the discussion here. -- ZH8000 (talk) 00:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

In 2017, we agreed that a lot of the details about driving in Switzerland would be moved to the Driving in Switzerland article, following the custom of some of our other country articles (see discussion above). User:ZH8000 has updated that article, and added the same text to this article, including the official legal code number and the titles in three of Switzerland's non-English official languages. S/he argues that this information belongs here because the Driving in Switzerland article isn't read very often.

I think this is way too much detail for a country article, and we should not be repeating information that us available on a linked article. If not many of our readers are reading the Driving in... article, then maybe not many our readers are planning to drive in Switzerland, so putting all of this legal detail in the country article is going to bore them. Boring readers is the fastest road to losing readers. Let's not be boring.

Let's restore the consensus we reschedule last year. Comments? Ground Zero (talk) 20:04, 24 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

• Agreed, totally. Ibaman (talk) 20:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

My edits have now been reverted once and twice with this argument given in the second revision comment: "Cockoo clocks are originally not from Switzerland but the Black Forest." There is no logic to this argument, since Switzerland is known for it's cuckoo clocks and there are domestic manufacturers. The very same argument actually annihilates the entire section, since watches, chocolate, cheese and knives are originally not Swiss either. I would like to get my second edit restored. Philaweb (talk) 20:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

PS. Make a search for cuckoo clock on Wikivoyage and you will see that there are places in Switzerland mentioned for their cuckoo clocks (except for Zurich). Philaweb (talk) 20:09, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

PPS. There is even a section on the English Wikipedia on: "Chalet" style, the Swiss contribution. Philaweb (talk) 20:22, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

I mean Germany is known for potatoes. They did not invent them, though. Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:03, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Stricly apeaking - noone "invented" potatoes, so why mention them at all?. ;o) Perhaps you have an argument pertaining to Wikivoyage and writing a travel description on Switzerland for tourists? I am not sure why cuckoo clocks should not be mentioned in the Switzerland article just because they originally were from Germany? This fact could be mentioned in the article though, but it was taken out completely, i.e. censored. Philaweb (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Potatoes as eaten today are pretty far removed from whatever their wild ancestors were. Maybe the difference is not as huge as it is with corn vs. teosinte, but it is true for basically everything humans ever domesticated. So if somebody "invented" the wheel - even though stones have rolled down hills before humans showed up - just as much humans invented the potato, corn, dogs and so on. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Chalet cuckoo clock was invented in Switzerland. Can we write about that? Philaweb (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Personally, I think the text was fine as it was. History aside, SW is known for cuckoo clocks. Would support restoring this edit. ARR8 (talk) 16:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

That would be fine with me as well. Philaweb (talk) 16:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Speaking as a Swiss, I'd say: Yes, of course cuckoo clocks are made and sold here as well; after all, Switzerland is famous for its watch and clock makers and clocks of all types are available here if there's a demand. There's no question that there is some demand for cuckoo clocks as well, typically by tourists who mistakenly think these are a Swiss tradition, which however, they are indeed not very much - except for the particular "Chalet" type mentioned by Philaweb, a late 19th century novelty as a contribution to a type of clock that already existed and was made primarily in the Black Forest in Germany. Having said that, I'd say that the reverted addition wasn't really wrong: It's true that "Switzerland is definitely the right place to shop" if you want a cuckoo clock (or any other type of clock). A cuckoo clock is nothing that most Swiss people would see as something typically "Swiss" (probably not even the "Chalet" type), but we're certainly happy to sell that stuff ;-). So my suggestion is to broaden the scope a bit. Maybe rather mention clocks and watches in general? Gestumblindi (talk) 00:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for being so late to this discussion, but I have't been here for a while.

The only, but important aspect I can add is that this is a very typically fictitcious – by its very own meaning – invention of a meme brought to public by a successful Hollywood movie. As the indirectly referenced source by Philaweb makes it very clear by its very first two paragraphs: "What could come as a surprise however is learning that Switzerland is not in fact the home of the cuckoo clock and that many of the cheap quartz clocks on sale are made in China, South Korea and Japan. The Black Forest region of southern Germany is where cuckoo clocks - mostly depicting a hunting scene - have their real nest.",^[1]

Honestly, I always have to laugh by the idea that for example a Chinese tourist buys a supposedly authentic souvenir, but later – if at all – has to learn that it was produced in China! LOL

-- ZH8000 (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Regarding my recent edit to the introduction, I think it is important to note the exhaustive public transportation system of Switzerland, including how large the network is and some of the major train lines with international relevancy. I believe that mystsnet.com is the authority when it comes to know-how about Swiss public transport, which is why I added that link. In the future, it might be helpful for travelers to have an overview of major train lines in Switzerland, such as the GoldenPass, the Glacier Express, etc. I have made a start by adding a few lines, as well as by linking the Bernina Express to an external guide which summarizes all important details about that line. —The preceding comment was added by Newlyswissed (talk • contribs)

• The interesting and valuable bits have been restored, however, please do not try to insert Newlyswissed links, or else it will be reverted. Thanks for the attention. Ibaman (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2019 (UTC)Reply

In an attempt to showcase the regional delicacies of Appenzell, I have added an overview of popular foods. It is up to you if yo don't want to publish my paragraph, but I think it would be a shame as there is a big variety of local specialties that travellers should know about. I have linked to an authoritative article about Appenzell foods, but the intent is not to promote that website but to give readers an overview with pictures of what the described food looks like. —The preceding comment was added by Newlyswissed (talk • contribs)

Switzerland has categorically stated that they will sanction China if it invades Taiwan. That is not neutrality. That is siding with Taiwan in a conflict with China. And in case anybody is accusing me of making this up, here is the proof: [6] The dog2 (talk) 17:28, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

• Please take this discussion to w:Foreign relations of Switzerland and its talk page. THIS IS NOT THE APPROPRIATE FORUM FOR THIS DISCUSSION! THIS IS A TRAVEL GUIDE! When are you gonna accept this simple reality, dude. Ibaman (talk) 17:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
• Thank you, Ibaman. Both the Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on Switzerland refer to its long history of neutrality. The dog2 can argue on the Wikipedia article if they want, but they cannot argue on the EB article, because EB is written by professional researchers whose work is reviewed and fact-checked, so they don't worry about what amateur political junkies think about what they write. Now I'm going back to working on this travel guide. I encourage The dog2 is stop making edits to politics and history and focus on travel information, or leave Wikivoyage alone. Ground Zero (talk) 17:48, 18 April 2023 (UTC)Reply