People from almost every one of the 200 or so countries on planet Earth live in Switzerland. Only three countries – the Cook Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu – have no nationals living here.
Source: Federal Statistical Office (2023)
Swiss live in almost every one of the 200 or so countries on planet Earth. Only five countries – the Marshall Islands, Nauru, North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Tuvalu – have no Swiss inhabitants whatsoever.
Source: Federal Statistical Office (2024)
Switzerland is truly intertwined with the rest of the world, but there is one exception. Tuvalu. Note to our readers: if you emigrated to this Pacific island nation, the Swiss expat population on the archipelago would come to a grand total of one. Switzerland and Tuvalu established diplomatic relations in 2005, so all it needs is someone to take the plunge.
Source: Federal Statistical Office / FDFA
Talk about boosting the numbers. Russia’s elites have traditionally chosen Switzerland as a safe haven to stash their money. But the Swiss bank accounts of sanctioned oligarchs have been frozen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The blocked assets currently amount to 7.4 billion Swiss francs – 1.6 billion more than in 2024.
Source: State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)
Now to food. The Swiss are eating more garlic. According to the latest figures, recent years have seen Switzerland importing 4,250,000 kilos of it annually, twice as much as two decades ago. Per capita consumption has increased to around half a kilogram a year.
Source: Federal Statistical Office
This section of the magazine is fairly light-hearted, but we need to mention something a little more serious. If sea levels rise according to climate projections, Tuvalu could soon become uninhabitable. Forty per cent of the archipelago’s population have already emigrated to New Zealand. The Tuvalu government is drawing up climate migration pathways for those remaining. It is also working to create a virtual replica of the island nation on the metaverse.
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