It’s Advent all year round for Marc Schneider, the head of the Statistics Office in Zurich. Every Monday, he ‘opens’ a little window on the office’s homepage in an attempt to attract visitors.
Schneider wants to show citizens there is a world of knowledge and intrigue behind numbers that at first glance may seem boring.
For instance, by clicking on the ‘number of the week’, Zurich citizens can discover that:
– 32 cents was the cost of the cheapest item on sale in Zurich in 2009. It was the price for an egg from a foreign farm.
– 76 of the 275 banks with operations in Switzerland were headquartered in Zurich.
– 166 nations were represented among Zurich’s residents in 2009.
– 1,224 fountains can be found in Zurich, making it one of the world’s most fountain-friendly cities.
– 29,877 Germans live in Zurich, making them the largest foreign population after Italians.
– 389,992 people lived in the city of Zurich at the end of September 2011.
– 2,600,000 overnight stays is the aggregate average each year for the city’s 111 hotels.
For more fantastic facts, see the statistics’ office website.
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