Zurich (German: Zürich; Alemannic German: Züri; see below) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. As of the end of 2024, the municipality had a population of 436,551, while the urban area was home to 1.45 million people (2020), and the Zurich metropolitan area had a total population of 2.1 million (2020). Zurich is a hub for railways, roads, and air traffic. Both Zurich Airport and Zurich's main railway station are the largest and busiest in the country.
Zurich is a cosmopolitan city. While German is the official language and Zurich German, the most widely spoken variety, the use of both German and Swiss German at home is steadily declining, whereas the use of English has increased by 60% over ten years, reaching 14% of the population in 2024, and 40% of Zurich residents speak English at work.
Evidence of early, sparse settlements in the area dates back more than 6,400 years, indicating human presence prior to the establishment of the town. Permanently settled for over 2,000 years, Zurich was eventually founded by the Romans, who called it Turicum. During the Middle Ages, Zurich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, became a primary centre of the Protestant Reformation in Europe under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli.
With 7 of the 10 globally leading AI companies having major operations in the city and with the presence of ETH Zurich, Zurich is a world-renowned technology hub. It is also a major financial and insurance center - the leading one in continental Europe according to the Global Financial Centres Index in 2026.
Many museums and art galleries can be found in the city, including the Swiss National Museum, Natural History Museum and Kunsthaus. Schauspielhaus Zürich is generally considered to be one of the most important theatres in the German-speaking world.
The name is traditionally written in English as Zurich, without the umlaut. It is pronounced ZURE-ik.
In German, the city name is written Zürich and pronounced [ˈtsyːrɪç] . In the local dialect, the name is pronounced without the final consonant and with two short vowels, as Züri [ˈtsyri], although the demonym remains Zürcher(in). The city is called Zurich [zyʁik] in French, Zurigo [dzuˈriːɡo] in Italian, and Turitg [tuˈritɕ] in Romansh.
The earliest known form of the city's name is Turicum, attested on a tombstone of the late 2nd century AD in the form STA(tio) TURICEN(sis) ("Turicum customs post"). The name is interpreted as a derivation from a given name, possibly the Gaulish personal name Tūros. The toponym *Turīcon would then mean "belonging to Tūros", "place of Tūros". The Latin stress on the long vowel of the Gaulish name, [tʊˈriːkõː], was lost in German [ˈtsyːrɪç] but is preserved in Italian [dzuˈriːɡo] and in Romansh [tuˈritɕ].
The first development towards its later Germanic form is attested as early as c. 680–700 with the form Ziurichi. From the 9th century onward, the name is established in an Old High German form Zuri(c)h (857 in villa Zurih, 924 in Zurich curtem, 1416 Zürich Stadt).
In Neo-Latin texts dating from c. 1500–1800, Zurich is often referred to as Tigurum (see Tigurini).
Settlements of the Neolithic and Bronze Age were found around Lake Zurich. Traces of pre-Roman Celtic La Tène settlements were discovered near the Lindenhof, a morainic hill dominating the SE – NW waterway constituted by Lake Zurich and the river Limmat. In Roman times, during the conquest of the alpine region in 15 BC, the Romans built a castellum on the Lindenhof. Later here was erected Turicum (a toponym of clear Celtic origin), a tax-collecting point for goods trafficked on the Limmat, which constituted part of the border between Gallia Belgica (from AD 90 Germania Superior) and Raetia: this customs point developed later into a vicus. After Emperor Constantine's reforms in AD 318, the border between Gaul and Italy (two of the four praetorian prefectures of the Roman Empire) was located east of Turicum, crossing the river Linth between Lake Walen and Lake Zurich where a castle and garrison looked over Turicum's safety. The earliest written record of the town dates from the 2nd century, with a tombstone referring to it as the Statio Turicensis Quadragesima Galliarum ("Zurich post for collecting the 2.5% value tax of the Galliae"), discovered at the Lindenhof.
In the 5th century, the Germanic Alemanni tribe settled in the Swiss Plateau. The Roman castle remained standing until the 7th century. A Carolingian castle, built on the site of the Roman castle by the grandson of Charlemagne, Louis the German, is mentioned in 835 (in Castro Turicino iuxta fluvium Lindemaci). Louis also founded the Fraumünster abbey in 853 for his daughter Hildegard. He endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zurich, Uri, and the Albis forest, and granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority. In 1045, King Henry III granted the convent the right to hold markets, collect tolls, and mint coins, and thus effectively made the abbess the ruler of the city.
Zurich gained Imperial immediacy (Reichsunmittelbarkeit, becoming an Imperial free city) in 1218 with the extinction of the main line of the Zähringer family and attained a status comparable to statehood. During the 1230s, a city wall was built, enclosing 38 hectares, when the earliest stone houses on the Rennweg were built as well. The Carolingian castle was used as a quarry, as it had started to fall into ruin.
Emperor Frederick II promoted the abbess of the Fraumünster to the rank of a duchess in 1234. The abbess nominated the mayor, and she frequently delegated the minting of coins to citizens of the city. The political power of the convent slowly waned in the 14th century, beginning with the establishment of the Zunftordnung (guild laws) in 1336 by Rudolf Brun, who also became the first independent mayor, i.e. not nominated by the abbess.
An important event in the early 14th century was the completion of the Manesse Codex, a key source of medieval German poetry. The famous illuminated manuscript has been described as "the most beautifully illumined German manuscript in centuries." It was commissioned by the Manesse family of Zurich, and copied and illustrated in the city at some time between 1304 and 1340. Producing such a work was a highly expensive prestige project, requiring several years of work by highly skilled scribes and miniature painters, and it testifies to the increasing wealth and pride of Zurich citizens in this period. The work contains 6 songs by Süsskind von Trimberg. Von Trimberg may have been Jewish, since the work itself contains reflections on medieval Jewish life, though little is known about him.
The first mention of Jews in Zurich was in 1273. Sources show that there was a synagogue in Zurich in the 13th century, implying the existence of a Jewish community. With the rise of the Black Death in 1349, Zurich, like most other Swiss cities, responded by persecuting and burning the local Jews, marking the end of the first Jewish community there. The second Jewish community of Zurich formed towards the end of the 14th century, was short-lived, and Jews were expelled and banned from the city from 1423 until the 19th century.
A woman who died in about 200 BC was found buried in a carved tree trunk during a construction project at the Kern school complex in March 2017 in Aussersihl. Archaeologists revealed that she was approximately 40 years old when she died and likely carried out little physical labor when she was alive. A sheepskin coat, a belt chain, a fancy wool dress, a scarf, and a pendant made of glass and amber beads were also discovered with the woman.
On 1 May 1351, the citizens of Zurich had to swear allegiance before representatives of the cantons of Lucerne, Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden, the other members of the Swiss Confederacy. Thus, Zurich became the fifth member of the Confederacy, which was at that time a loose confederation of de facto independent states. Zurich was the presiding canton of the Diet from 1468 to 1519. This authority was the executive council and lawmaking body of the confederacy, from the Middle Ages until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848. Zurich was temporarily expelled from the confederacy in 1440 due to a war with the other member states over the territory of Toggenburg (the Old Zurich War). Neither side had attained significant victory when peace was agreed upon in 1446, and Zurich was readmitted to the confederation in 1450.