Overview of Zurich

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Zurich is the largest city of the Helvetian Confederation (Switzerland) by land area and population. It's the financial center of Switzerland, houses the stock exchange and the headquarters of a large number of national and international companies. National and international media agencies as well as most of the national TV channel companies are also located here. As Zurich is the central node of the Swiss-wide train network and also runs the biggest and busiest international airport of the country, it generally is the first place for tourists to go to. Because of the city's close distance to tourist resorts in the Swiss Alps and its mountainous scenery, it often gets referred to as the "portal to the alps".

Contrary to some belief, Zurich is not the capital of Switzerland-- that honor falls to Berne. Zurich has long been known for being clean and efficient. Due to this, it has been continuously ranked as the city with the highest living standard world-wide for many years. However, only for the last ten years has it truly become a fascinating and worthwhile travel destination. This is mostly thanks to the liberalization of the cultural, party and gastronomy sectors. An increasingly cosmopolitan population has helped, as well, though more button-down Geneva remains Switzerland's most culturally heterogeneous city.

The main spoken language in Zürich is a subdialect of High Alemannic known as Zürich German, which is somewhat misleading as the pronunciation is very different and the dialect (language?) has its own writing language. Alemannic is not recognized by any governments in Switzerland however, and Standard German is the official language, and in Zürich virtually everyone speaks it very well. Many people will understand English and/or French as well. Italian is not commonly spoken but may be understood by French-proficient locals due to their similarity. It is also possible to get understood in languages related to German like Dutch and Scandinavian languages.