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VAUD

Is the Swiss canton of Vaud one of the ‘best places on earth’?

The French-speaking canton located in south-west of Switzerland has just launched a campaign to attract more people to its shores. But what's it got to brag about?

Published: 15 September 2023 17:17 CEST
Is the Swiss canton of Vaud one of the 'best places on earth'?
Lausanne cathedral looks over the Old Town. Image by Christiane M. from Pixabay

“Vaud is one of the best places on earth to travel, live well, eat well, work well, have fun, cultivate yourself, play sports, take care of yourself, train and be amazed in an exceptional setting,” the canton’s promotional arm, aptly named Vaud Promotion, said in a press release. 
The campaign’s goal is to make the qualities known in Switzerland and abroad, so that more people will want to partake of its charms.

What is so special about Vaud?

The canton offers numerous advantages, which attract many international residents to its towns and villages: in fact, more than 30 percent of the canton’s residents are foreigners.

These are some of them:

Geography

Vaud offers both mountains (called les Alpes vaudoises), as well as the famous Lake Geneva, locally called Lac Léman.

Among the most frequented ski resorts, Les Diablerets, is best known.

As for Lake Geneva / Lac Léman (which Switzerland shares with France), it is great for both boating and swimming.

Small, picturesque towns and villages that line its shore —Vevey and Montreux are among the most famous ones — are also very popular places to visit and live in.

Vineyards

Vaud has several wine-growing regions, where the Chasselas grape variety reigns.

The best-known vineyards wrap around Lake Geneva, with grapes often growing on sloping, terraced vineyards that descent toward the lake.

The one towards the west is called La Côte, and the eastward one is Le Lavaux, with the latter being designated as UNESCO’s World-Heritage site.

Lavaux vineyards sloping towards Lake Geneva. Photo by Razvan Sassu on Unsplash
 

Lausanne

The Vaud’s capital city is a definite advantage.

It is very charming and picturesque, with its Old Town overlooking Lake Geneva and the French municipality of Evian on the other shore.

But don’t just take our word for it: one of the world’s best-known US media outlets, The New York Times, ranked Lausanne among 52 most beautiful destinations in the world.

It praised the city for its “spectacular views of Lake Geneva and an explosive architectural and artistic scene”.

READ ALSO: Why the Swiss city of Lausanne is so popular among foreigners

Commuter towns

Lausanne and Geneva are just 60 kilometres apart.

Between the two cities lie several towns and villages from where people commute to work in one city or another.

It is an easy commute by train or by car on the A9 motorway, both of which stretch along the lakeshore (which is to say that both rides are very scenic).

The most beautiful among these communities nestled between Lausanne and Geneva are Morges, Aubonne, and Nyon.

The train between Lausanne and Geneva travels through the beautiful Vaud countryside. Photo: Pixabay

How is it really to live in Vaud?

As with everything else, opinions will differ.

Some people will love it and the others less so.

On the positive side, apart from the beauty of the region (as mentioned above), the canton also boasts excellent infrastructure.

For instance, the cantonal university hospital (CHUV) in Lausanne ranks among the world’s top-10 hospitals, which means canton’s residents have access to world-class healthcare. 

Also, one of the country’s top educational and research institutions, EPFL, is located in Lausanne, providing vast opportunities for teachers and students alike.

On the negative side, Vaud’s taxes are among the highest in the country (in the third place, behind Geneva and Basel-Country), which is obviously not to everyone’s liking.

However, the canton’s benefits must largely outweigh its downsides, as a number of famous people, who could have lived anywhere in the world, chose Vaud as their home base.

Among them was Charlie Chaplin (who lived the last two decades of his life in the Vevey area), and Audrey Hepburn, who settled in a village of Tolochenaz near Lausanne.
 
 
 

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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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