Lake Zurich and the Limmat river attract travellers

Zurich is the most important centre of the Swiss media and creative industry. With its location on Lake Zurich, its well-preserved medieval old town and a diverse range of cultural offerings and nightlife, it is also a centre of tourism.

Zurich, which emerged from the Roman base of Turicum, became a free imperial city in 1262 and a member of the Confederation in 1351. The city of the reformer Huldrych Zwingli became the second most important (after Wittenberg) centre of the Reformation in 1519. To this day it is considered the starting point of the worldwide Reformed Church and the Anabaptists.

The city of Zurich is an important centre of Swiss art and culture. Zurich owes part of its cultural upswing to numerous painters, composers and writers who stayed in the city - often as political refugees - and left their mark: including Antonio Ligabue, Max Frisch, James Joyce, Thornton Wilder, Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann. The artistic and literary movement Dadaism emerged in Zurich in 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire.

Art enthusiasts are recommended to visit the Kunsthaus Zurich or the Museum Rietberg.