10 more facts about Switzerland

1.) Switzerland is the oldest neutral country in the world; it has not fought a foreign war since its neutrality was established by the Treaty of Paris in 1815.

2.) Switzerland has been an independent country since the year 1499, apart from occupation by Napoleon’s France between 1798 and 1815.

3.) In 2007, Swiss troops accidentally invaded its neighbor Liechtenstein after getting lost in a rainstorm.

4.) The Swiss Guards who protect the Vatican, in the Vatican City are dual citizens and the only Swiss citizens allowed to serve in foreign armies.

5.) Switzerland has a square flag; the only other square country flag belongs to the Vatican.

6.) The CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva is the world’s largest research centre. Here, more than 100 meters below ground, we find the accelerator that simulates the conditions occurring fractions of a second after the big bang.

7.) In 1891, Karl Elsener invented the Swiss Army Knife after finding out the army’s knives were actually made in Germany. He wanted to create a knife that could have multiple uses and was made in Switzerland. There are over 400 different models of the Swiss Army Knife, and designs today can include an altimeter, barometer, and a computer USB memory card. It has been nicknamed “The World’s Smallest Toolbox.”

8.) The Nestlé Company, started by Henri Nestlé in 1867, buys up almost ten percent of the world’s coffee and cacao bean crops by itself annually. It also created Nescafe, the world’s first instant coffee in 1938.

9.) Every single one of the seven billion Toblerone  produced annually comes from the factory just outside the Swiss capital.

10.) Swiss chocolatier DeLafée has actually developed gold chocolate. They blended 24-karat gold dust into cocoa butter to create edible chocolate gold.