A distinct change has taken place in Switzerland over the last two decades when it comes to municipality structure. In 2000, Switzerland still had 2,899 political municipalities – a good 300 less than when the Federal State was founded in 1848, with more than twice as many municipalities disappearing over the last 20 years. In 1850 there were 3,205 municipalities in Switzerland. In 1900 there were 3,164, in 1950 there were 3,101, in 1990 there were 3,021, in 2000 there were 2,899 and in 2010 there were 2,596. Since the turn of the century, there has been a decrease of 724 municipalities, leaving what is now 2,175 (1 January 2021). This has resulted in significant structural adjustments at municipal level.
Linking up villages and hamlets to form a single municipal administrative region is a practice that dates back to the Middle Ages in Switzerland. Many municipalities – such as those in Obwalden, Ticino and Vaud – are still divided up into their original districts to this day. In addition, some districts are merged for ease of governance, such as Bogis and Bossey, merged by Bern in 1542, and Wangen and Brüttisellen, merged by Zurich in the 17th century. However, a formal merger of municipalities must be underpinned by a structured legal framework, which became possible for the first time in Swiss history with the passing of the municipalities act.
- Merging municipalities is firstly understood to mean joining them together. This is where independent municipalities combine their territory, population and organisational structures to form a new municipality.
Municipality mergers are the main reason for this reduction. 250 municipalities disappeared between 1850 and 1990 due to mergers, with the greatest number of these occurring in Bern (36 mergers), Thurgau (35), Fribourg (30), Zurich (29), Graubünden (27), Ticino (20) and Aargau (19). The number of mergers has increased sharply since 1990, in particular in the cantons of Thurgau and Fribourg. Out of all the cantons, Fribourg has had the greatest number of mergers, reducing its municipality count by almost 120. If we only look at the years since 2000, then the canton of Ticino has seen the most municipality mergers. Proportionally speaking, the most drastic district reform has taken place in the canton of Glarus, where 27 municipalities have been reduced to just three. Between 2000 and the end of 2009, 207 municipalities across Switzerland merged to form 62 municipalities and from 2010 to the end of 2021, a further 375 joined together to become 90 municipalities. It should also be noted that the number of municipalities taking part in mergers has risen. In the 1960s and 80s, an average of two municipalities merged together, meaning that the trend towards large mergers can be detected in the following decades. Between 2000 and the end of 2009, the average number of municipalities participating in a merger rose to 3.3 and then to 4.2 between 2010 and the end of 2021. - Municipalities can also be merged through incorporation, which is the act of joining municipalities to a central one that assumes all rights and obligations.
Incorporations became particularly popular in the early 1900s with the rise of urban agglomerations, for instance in Zurich (1893, 1934), Biel/Bienne (1900, 1917, 1919), Basel (1908), Bern (1919) and Geneva (1931). The most recent major act of incorporation took place in 2004, 2008 and 2013, with Lugano incorporating 18 of its surrounding municipalities.
The background to the increasing significance of municipality mergers in Switzerland can be attributed to a variety of economic, political and social developments that are threatening the performance and independence of municipalities.
In addition to municipality mergers and incorporations, other process can however lead to changes at municipal level:
- Municipality divisions do not happen very often. Arosa separated from Davos in 1851 to form its own municipality, while Bolligen was divided up into Ostermundigen, Ittigen and Bolligen in 1983 and Rubigen into Allmendingen, Rubigen and Trimstein in 1993.
- Name changes to existing municipalities are however becoming more common. In some cases, these are linguistic changes (e.g. Somvix to Sumvitg), renaming the municipality to create double-barrelled names (e.g. Vilters to Vilters-Wangs) or changes to provide a more detailed description such as Rüthi (Rheintal) to Rüthi (SG).
- Mutations at cantonal level have only happened once since the Federal State was founded and that was in 1979 when the Canton of Jura was established. This resulted in the Canton of Bern losing 82 municipalities.
- Mutations at district level on the other hand are more common. In 1994, the Bernese district Laufen changed to be part of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft and in 1996, the municipality of Vellerat moved from the Canton of Bern (district of Moutier) to the Canton of Jura (district of Delémont), with the Canton of Bern losing a further 14 municipalities.
The BFS is publishing the basic data for all municipality statuses and their mutations since 1960 under the title “Historical municipal directory”.