The capital of Switzerland is Bern, a city of about 146,000 people (2024) on the Swiss Plateau, where the river Aare loops around a narrow sandstone ridge. Officially it is not called a capital at all: when the federal state was founded in 1848, parliament chose Bern as the Bundesstadt, or "federal city", the seat of government, and the constitution does not name it as the capital. It is only the country's fifth-largest city, behind Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. Its defining feature is the Old Town on that Aare peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983, and the best way to understand it is on foot, walking from the railway station east along one long street to the river.
Spitalgasse and the Lost Christoffelturm
Bern was laid out as a series of parallel streets running the length of the peninsula, and the city grew westward in stages, each marked by a new wall and gate tower. The walk therefore runs backwards through time. At the western end, near where the railway station stands today, rose the Christoffelturm, the gate of the third wall built between 1344 and 1346 to enclose six new streets. The tower is gone, but the street leading east from it, Spitalgasse, still follows the medieval line.
The first landmark is the Heiliggeistkirche at Spitalgasse 44, one of the largest Swiss Reformed churches in the country. A chapel for the Holy Ghost hospital stood here by 1228, some 150 metres outside the gate of the first town wall. The present Baroque church was built between 1726 and 1729 by Niklaus Schiltknecht. From here the street is lined on both sides with the arcades Bern is known for: about 6 kilometres of covered walkways, known locally as Lauben, which make the Old Town one of the longest covered shopping promenades in Europe.
Käfigturm to the Bundesplatz: Where Switzerland Is Governed
Spitalgasse ends at the Käfigturm, the "prison tower", which was the gate of the second wall built in the expansion of 1255–1260. It marked Bern's western edge for almost a century. Stepping through it brings you into the Innere Neustadt, the "inner new town", and a short detour south leads to the Bundesplatz and the Federal Palace, which straddles the line of the old Käfigturm wall on the southern rim of the peninsula.
The Federal Palace is a complex just over 300 metres long made of three connected buildings. The west wing, built from 1852 to 1857 by Jakob Friedrich Studer, first gathered the federal administration, government and parliament under one roof; the east wing followed from 1884 to 1892, and the domed parliament building in the centre was erected between 1894 and 1902 under Hans Wilhelm Auer. Both chambers of the Federal Assembly, the National Council and the Council of States, meet here, and the seven-member Federal Council holds its meetings in the west wing. Stone from all parts of the country was used in the central building to stress that it belongs to every canton. The same idea shaped the square in front: in 2004 the Bundesplatz was repaved in granite with 26 water jets set into it, one for each canton. The structure behind those 26 cantons is explained in our guide to how the government of Switzerland works.
Why Bern and not the richer cities? On 28 November 1848 a majority of the new Federal Assembly chose it ahead of Zurich and Lucerne. Zurich was already the economic powerhouse, and deputies did not want to concentrate political power there too; Catholic, conservative Lucerne had fought on the losing Sonderbund side in the civil war of 1847. Bern was more central and closer to the French-speaking cantons, which backed it. By then it had long been a power in its own right: it joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1353 as its eighth canton, conquered Aargau in 1415 and Vaud in 1536, and became the largest city-state north of the Alps.
Marktgasse to the Zytglogge Clock Tower
Back on the main axis, the broad Marktgasse was the market street of the 1255 extension. At its upper end stands the Anna Seiler Fountain. In her will of 29 November 1354, Anna Seiler asked the city to found a hospital in her house; it opened with 13 beds and two attendants, moved in 1531 into an empty Dominican convent and became the Inselspital, which still exists more than 650 years later. The fountain is one of eleven in the Old Town topped with Renaissance allegorical figures, among more than 100 public fountains in the city. Just north on the Kornhausplatz is the strangest of them, Hans Gieng's Kindlifresserbrunnen of 1545–46, a seated ogre devouring a child. Nobody knows what it was meant to show; theories range from the Titan Cronus to a carnival figure meant to frighten disobedient children.
Marktgasse ends at the Zytglogge, the oldest monument in the city. It was built around 1218–1220 as the gate tower of Bern's first western wall, a squat 16-metre block, and was raised by 7 metres around 1270–1275 once the Käfigturm had taken over as the outer gate. After the next expansion it served as a women's prison. The great fire of 1405 gutted it; a clock was installed above the gate in the early 15th century, and the bell cast in 1405 gave the tower its Bernese German name, meaning "time bell". Between 1527 and 1530 Kaspar Brunner rebuilt the clockwork, and the astronomical clock and mechanical figures still draw crowds on the hour.
Kramgasse and Gerechtigkeitsgasse: The Zähringer Town of 1191
East of the Zytglogge you enter the oldest part of Bern, the town founded, according to a chronicle of 1309, by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen in 1191. After Berthold died without an heir, Emperor Frederick II made Bern a free imperial city in 1218. The Zähringer town had a strict layout: official buildings around the Kreuzgasse, churches along the Münstergasse and Herrengasse, and guild halls and shops along the central Kramgasse and its continuation, the Gerechtigkeitsgasse.
What you see is not the wooden town of the Zähringers. In 1405 a fire destroyed most of Bern's timber buildings, and the city was rebuilt in stone, first as half-timbered houses and then in the sandstone that gives the Old Town its uniform look today. Through the 15th century the upper storeys were extended over the pavement on arches, creating the arcades. At Kramgasse 49, a second-floor flat was home from 1903 to 1905 to Albert Einstein, then working at the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property as a patent examiner, with his wife Mileva Marić and their son Hans. It was here that he wrote the "miracle year" papers of 1905, including the special theory of relativity; the flat is now the Einsteinhaus museum.
On the Gerechtigkeitsgasse stands the Justice Fountain, built by Hans Gieng in 1543. Blindfolded Justice holds a sword and scales above four smaller figures, the Pope, a Sultan, the Emperor and the Schultheiss or mayor of Bern: every kind of ruler, subject to the law. The design was copied in Solothurn, Lausanne, Neuchâtel and elsewhere.
One street south, the Münster rises over the peninsula's southern edge. Construction of the Gothic minster began in 1421, but its tower, 100.6 metres high, was finished only in 1893, making it the tallest church in Switzerland. From the Münsterplattform behind it, a terrace above the river, you can look straight down into the Matte.
Down to the Matte and Over the Untertorbrücke
Bern is built on uneven ground, with height differences of up to 60 metres between the riverside quarters of Matte and Marzili and the upper districts of Kirchenfeld and Länggasse. The Matte, squeezed between the ridge and the Aare, was the working town. In 1360 three channels were dug to divert river water to three city-owned mills, and medieval sources record endless complaints about the racket of machinery and carts. Goods were unloaded at the Schiffländte, the boat landing.
At the far eastern tip, where Castle Nydegg once stood before it was destroyed around 1268, the Untertorbrücke crosses the Aare. The first bridge here, probably a wooden walkway, dated from 1256; after a flood swept it away in 1460, the city replaced it with a three-arched stone bridge 52 metres long, completed around 1490. It was the only bridge across the Aare at Bern until the high Nydeggbrücke opened in the 1840s. On the far bank is the Bärengraben, the bear pit. The bear has been on Bern's seal and coat of arms since at least the 1220s, and the current pit, the fourth in the city, opened in 1857. Since 2009 the bears have also had the BärenPark, a larger and more natural enclosure alongside the Aare.
The Rosengarten View and Bern Beyond the Peninsula
The walk ends with a climb to the Rosengarten, a former cemetery turned into a rose garden in 1913, which looks back across the river at the whole Old Town, from the Nydegg church to the Münster tower. From here you can see how the Aare hemmed the medieval city in and why, once high bridges were built in the 19th century, Bern spilled across the river to districts such as the Kirchenfeld, laid out after 1881. Beyond them, on clear days, the Bernese Alps stand about 20 kilometres to the south; the peaks are part of the chain covered in our guide to the Alps.
The city's population has followed an unusual curve. It passed 100,000 in the 1920s, peaked at about 165,000 in the 1960s, fell below 130,000 by 2000 and has since recovered. The wider agglomeration of 36 municipalities had about 406,900 people in 2014.
Bern is also the capital of the canton of Bern, the second most populous of Switzerland's cantons, and it hosts international bodies such as the Universal Postal Union. Yet in national terms it remains a modest administrative city, a deliberate choice made in 1848 to keep power spread among the cantons. How those cantons divide the country is laid out in our explainer on how many cantons Switzerland has.
Quick Facts About Bern
- Country: Switzerland
- Continent: Europe (Western Europe)
- Country population: approximately 9.0 million
- Capital city status: Bern is the capital of Switzerland, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Switzerland?
The capital of Switzerland is Bern. Bern is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Bern in?
Bern, the capital of Switzerland, is located in Europe, in the Western Europe region. As Switzerland's capital, Bern serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Europen political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Bern the capital of Switzerland?
Bern was chosen as the capital of Switzerland for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Bern's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Bern known for?
As the capital of Switzerland, Bern is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Switzerland, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Switzerland Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Switzerland — meaning, history, and design of Switzerland's national flag