Switzerland's largest city and the world's most liveable — where the medieval Grossmünster towers over a lake so clean it's a public swimming pool, Bahnhofstrasse is one of the world's most exclusive shopping streets, and the Kunsthaus is the finest art museum between Paris and Vienna
Zurich is Switzerland's largest city (440,000, metro 1.8 million) on Lake Zurich and the Limmat River, consistently ranked the world's most liveable city. The medieval Altstadt (old town) covers both banks of the Limmat, anchored by the twin-towered Grossmünster (begun c. 1100, where Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation in 1519) and the Fraumünster (its Marc Chagall stained-glass windows are among the finest in Europe). Lake Zurich is a public swimming pool — Zürisee Baths are a Zurich institution every summer. Bahnhofstrasse (1.4km from the main station to the lake) is among the world's mo…
A Roman customs post (Turicum) was established on the Lindenhügel around 15 BCE. The settlement became a Carolingian royal court city under Louis the German in 853 CE, who founded the Fraumünster abbey. Zurich joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1351 as its first urban member. The Swiss Reformation began here in 1519 when Ulrich Zwingli began preaching at the Grossmünster — a more radical break from Rome than Luther's; Zwingli rejected not only papal authority but the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a split that divided Protestantism permanently. Zurich became the world's most impor…