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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

How do the Swiss celebrate Ascension Day?

Ascension Day is on Thursday May 18th this year. Here’s how the Swiss celebrate it - and where.

Published: 16 May 2023 12:46 CEST
Updated: 18 May 2023 09:22 CEST
Zermatt, in southern Switzerland’s Valais canton.
Zermatt, in southern Switzerland’s Valais canton. Many people get out and enjoy the nature on public holidays. Photo by Joao Branco on Unsplash

In Switzerland, May 18th marks Ascension Day, one of the few Swiss nationwide public holidays – alongside Christmas Day and New Year’s Day – to be celebrated in every canton with a day off work.

Ascension Day, which is synonymous with the German and Austrian holiday Christi Himmelfahrt, is in fact equated with Sunday, so shops in Switzerland are closed all day.

How Ascension Day celebrated in Switzerland?

While most people living in Switzerland look forward to kicking off the extended weekend with a relaxing getaway, some traditions to celebrate Ascension day are still observed in many cantons.

Once upon a time, ceremonial processions to mark Ascension day, which would see the Swiss walk through fields and meadows, were prevalent in most Catholic regions across Switzerland.

However, today, only a few rural communities in Lucerne carry out these traditional Ascension day processions, known as Auffahrstumritt, in their original religious form.

The oldest, largest and by far most popular Ascension day procession takes place every year in Beromünster when around 1,000 people travel some 18 kilometres to meditate, pray and walk among like-minded people, listen to sermons by the clergy and/or receive blessings.

Each year, the procession – which lasts around eight-and-a-half hours – takes residents and visitors along a centuries-old path through various towns and villages. Following that, more people – sometimes up to 5,000 – join in for a large celebration to mark the end of the procession and in turn, Ascencion day.

Swiss city of Lucerne

The Swiss city of Lucerne. Photo: Geertje Caliguire on Unsplash

READ ALSO: When are the Swiss public holidays in your canton in 2023?

The municipality of Sempach and the city of Lucerne also maintain similar traditions.

In Liestal, an industrial town based in the canton of Basel-Land, residents celebrate a so-called Banntag (community boundary day) on the Monday prior to Ascension day.

On Banntag, all male Liestal residents, men whose hometown is Liestal, as well as all their male guests and school-age children of both sexes stroll along the boundaries of their municipality.

On the day, residents are divided into four groups based on their family ties and neighbourhood with a leader, fife, drum band, and fancy flag to boot.

The Banntag traditionally starts at 6 am with a shooting demonstration by the marksmen in the Rathausstrasse, following which the town gate bell is rung to gather the townspeople. At 8 am the groups then begin the 26-kilometre march along communal boundaries, followed by a few rounds of bar hopping in Liestal’s taverns.

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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

REVEALED: How Switzerland’s native-English speakers are growing in number

Some Swiss cities have higher concentrations of foreign residents than others. A new study reveals where most of them live and interestingly how more and more of them are native English-speakers.

Published: 23 April 2024 15:21 CEST
REVEALED: How Switzerland's native-English speakers are growing in number

Foreigners who move to Switzerland like to settle in the cities.

This is what emerges from a new study published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, the municipality with the highest number of foreign residents is not Zurich or Geneva, but Kreuzlingen in canton Thurgau, where 56.3 percent of the population are foreigners.

Next is Rorschach in St. Gallen, where just over half (50.6 percent) of residents are foreign.

In terms of regions, however, more towns in the French-speaking part of the country have a high proportion of non-Swiss.

In the first place is the Lausanne suburb of Renens, where 49.3 percent of inhabitants are foreign.

It is followed by Geneva (49.2 percent) and its districts Meyrin (45.4 percent) and Vernier (44.8 percent). Next are Vaud municipalities of Montreux (44.2 percent) and Yverdon (37.7 percent).

The study doesn’t indicate why exactly so many immigrants move to these particular towns, but generally new arrivals tend to settle in or near places where they work.

Another interesting finding: English language is gaining ground

“If we consider non-national languages, it is striking to see that English has developed significantly,” FSO reports.

“It is today the main language of 8.1 percent of the resident population.”

This has also been shown in another FSO study in March, which indicated that  English is not only the most prevalent foreign language in Switzerland, but in some regions even ‘outperforms’ national languages.

In French-speaking Geneva, for instance, 11.8 percent of the population speak English — more than 5.7 percent who speak Italian. And in the neighbouring Vaud, 9.1 percent of residents speak English, versus 4.9 percent for both German and Italian.

In Basel-City, where the main language is German, 12.5 percent speak English, 6.1 percent Italian, and 5 percent French.

And in Zurich,10.8 percent speak English, versus only 5.8 percent for Italian and 3.2 percent French.

The ‘ winner’ however, is the German-speaking Zug, where 14.1 percent of the population over the age of 15 has English as their primary language. 

READ ALSO : Where in Switzerland is English most widely used? 

What else does the study reveal?

It shows to what extent Switzerland’s population ‘migrated’ from rural areas to cities over the past century.

While only a third of the country’s residents lived in urban regions 100 years ago, the 170 Swiss cities and their agglomerations are now home to three-quarters of the population.

As a result of this evolution, “new cities sprang up, many political and spatial boundaries were moved, and the country became increasingly urban.”

With a population of 427,000, Zurich is still the most populated city, followed by Geneva (204,000) and Basel (174,000).

And there is more: Fewer people practice religion

The proportion of people who feel they belong to a traditional religion is generally falling, FSO found.

This downward trend concerns all religions, but it is strongest among people of the Reformed Evangelical faith.

In six towns in particular — Bussigny, Crissier, and Ecublens (VD), Kloten, and Opfikon (ZH), as well as Oftringen (AR) — the drop was of more than 70 percent.
 
 READ ALSO: Why so many Swiss are quitting the church and taking their money with them

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