ZURICH

largest city of Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zrich. It is a financial and industrial centre located in an Alpine setting at the northwestern end of Lake Zrich. The first inhabitants of the site were the prehistoric peoples whose settlements of hut dwellings rose from pile foundations driven into the shores of the lake. The Celtic Helvetii founded a community on the right bank of the Limmat River; when the Romans conquered this area in about 58 BC, they made the settlement a customs post. After the collapse of Rome, the community fell first to the Alamannii from the north, and later to the Franks, who made it a royal residence. The community began to flourish as traders settled in the town and took advantage of its position straddling European trade routes. In 1218 Zrich became an imperial free city, and in 1351 an important alliance was made with the Swiss Confederation. In 1336 the citizens accepted a constitution that, based democratically on the guild system, balanced the power of the various crafts, the trades, and the nobility. As the guilds became more powerfulthe city was able to purchase its freedom from the emperor in 1400Zrich became embroiled in conflicts with neighbouring territories, but economic growth continued relatively unimpeded. On New Year's Day, 1519, Huldrych Zwingli, a priest at the Grossmnster (Great Minster), began to preach a series of sermons that initiated the Swiss Protestant Reformation and transformed the character of Zrich itself. During the Counter-Reformation, the city offered asylum to many refugees from northern Italy and France, and the new residents further stimulated cultural and economic growth. A liberal democratic order, with the citizenry electing and exercising strong control over the legislative as well as the executive branches of government, emerged during the 1830s. Zrich thus became well equipped to enter the modern industrial era: as early as 1787, a quarter of the population had been engaged in textile manufacturing, a successor to the medieval silk industry; and the 1830 constitution (further liberalized in 1869) aided an economic expansion centred on manufacturing and service industries. Zrich's historic international links also placed it in the forefront of modern world finance. By the second half of the 20th century, the once dominant textile industry had lost its former importance, and heavy manufacturing industrynotably machine productionhad become dominant. The city also has a vigorous tourist trade, which has made the downtown Bahnhofstrasse one of the world's great shopping streets. International congresses are also important. The city is a major railway centre, and the nearby ZrichKloten international airport is the busiest airport in Switzerland. Zrich has nurtured a rich cultural life, and its theatres and opera have often been characterized by innovation and experiment. Educational institutions include the University of Zrich (1833), maintained by the canton, and the Federal Institute of Technology (1855). The Swiss National Museum (1898) is a treasure-house of historical, artistic, and scientific collections. The architectural legacy of the old city ranges from the Romanesque Grossmnster, built by Charlemagne in the 700s, and the 13th-century St. Peter's Church to the elegant guildhouses and patrician residences, some of which are used as restaurants or for civic functions. There are two great annual festivals: the April Sechseluten, with a guild procession and the ceremonial burning of a snowman, and the September Knabenschiessen, a youthful sharpshooting contest. Mountain climbing in the nearby Alps is a popular sport. Pop. (1983 est.) city, 367,900; metropolitan area, 839,939. canton, northeastern Switzerland, with an area of 668 sq mi (1,729 sq km), of which about 80 percent is reckoned as productive, including about 195 sq mi of forests. Of the rest, 28 sq mi are occupied by lakes, chiefly Greifen and Pfffikon and part of Lake Zrich. The terrain consists of shallow river valleys draining northward toward the Rhine and separated by ridges trending northwest to southeast. The most important valley is that of the Linth, which expands into Lake Zrich and is continued as the Limmat. East of the lake, separated by successively higher ridges, are the valleys of the Glatt, which flows through the lake called Greifensee, and the more gorgelike Tss, separated from the Toggenburg (valley) by a ridge along the east boundary that reaches 3,717 ft (1,133 m) at the Hrnli. West of the lake is the valley of the Sihl, bounded farther west by the Albis Range, with Albishorn (3,002 ft) as its highest point. Historically, the canton represents the territories acquired up to 1803 by its capital, Zrich, which officially ranks as the first to join the Swiss Confederation in 1351. The whole of the lower part of Lake Zrich was added in 1362, and the canton reached the Rhine after the purchase of Winterthur from the Habsburgs in 1467. It now extends from its enclave on the right bank of the Rhine in the German state of Baden-Wrttemberg to about 8 mi (13 km) south of the Pfffikon See. The present cantonal constitution dates from 1869. Although the land is highly cultivated, the canton is essentially a manufacturing area, noted especially for machinery and railway rolling stock; about one-third of the nation's total machine production is situated in the canton. Silk and cotton weaving are widespread. Zrich and Winterthur are the principal centres, while Uster, east of the Greifensee, and Thalwil, Horgen, and Wdenswil, on the western shore of Lake Zrich, are all industrial towns. Railways run through the valleys, and standard lines and mountain railways radiate in all directions from the city of Zrich. The Limmat Valley (Zrich to Baden) carried the first railway line opened (1847) in Switzerland. The population, the largest of any Swiss canton, is German speaking and predominantly Protestant. Pop. (1983 est.) 1,127,996.