Federal President (rotating): Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (until 1 Jan 2013)
President: Pratibha Patil
Population
7,925,517
1,205,073,612
Life Expectancy
81.170 years
67.140 years
Capital City
Bern
New Delhi
Largest city
Zurich (population: 341,730)
Mumbai (population: 12,691,800)
Human Development Index
0.955
0.609
GDP per capita
$43,900 US
$3,700 US
Literacy Rate
99%
61%
Corruption Perception Index
9
3.4
Percentage of Women in Parliament
27.2%
9.2%
Wealthiest Citizens
Ernesto Bertarelli ($8.2bn US)
Mukesh Ambani ($19.5bn US)
Unemployment Rate
3.100%
9.800%
Death Penalty
Abolished
Legal
Political System
formally a confederation but similar in structure to a federal republic
federal republic
Independence date
1 August 1291 (founding of the Swiss Confederation)
15 August 1947 (from UK)
Religions
Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%, Orthodox 1.8%, other Christian 0.4%, other 1%, unspecified 4.3%, none 11.1% (2000 census)
Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)
Languages
German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census) note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national and official languages
Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9% note: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language (2001 census)
