Zurich
Zurich names 5 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Zurich tsu'rik, a city of Switzerland
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
tsu'rik, a city of Switzerland. In situation, history, and present importance it bears much the same relation to German Switzerland that Geneva does to French Switzerland. It is situated on the green and rapid Limmat, where the latter issues from Lake Zurich. Like Geneva, the city extends along both banks of the lake. Villages, orchards, vineyards, and villas enliven the vicinity. Few cities of Europe have finer promenades or maintain homes commanding a more beautiful view. Zurich is a city of antiquity. It was a Roman military station. In 1219 it became a free imperial city. The cathedral is a Romanesque building of the twelfth century. It is connected with the memory of Zwingli, the founder of Protestantism in German Switzerland. The university of Zurich, founded in 1832, has 125 instructors and about 700 students. The city hall, a massive building dating from 1699, a town library, a number of old churches, a botanical garden , a museum of textiles, the collection of arms, and an art gallery are all worthy of a visit. The chief attractions of the city are a general air of historic quaintness, the lake, the river, and the beautiful scenery of the surrounding hills. The population in 1901 was 152,942. It is the busiest manufacturing town in Switzerland. Silk and cotton are woven. There are about 10,000 silk looms in the city and canton. There are other manufactures of candles, soap, tobacco, paper, leather, and machinery. The finest woodcarving in Switzerland is to be had at Zurich. The inhabitants are almost entirely Protestant.
Zurich a N. canton of Switzerland
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a N. canton of Switzerland; drained by the Rhine and its tributaries, and traversed from N. W. to S. E. by ridges of lofty hills, between which lie three valleys, forming almost its whole surface those of the Toss, the Glatt, and the Limmat. The last drains the beautiful Lake of Zurich, which, lying 1,341 feet above sea-level, is 25 miles long, and 2½ miles broad at the widest. Zurich has an area of 666 square miles and a pop. of about 425,000. Zurich has not a fertile soil, but it is carefully cultivated. Zurich was one of the earliest seats of the cotton manufacture in Europe, and the spinning and weaving of cotton are still prosecuted with great success. The silk industry is nearly as important; and machinery, bells, type, paper, etc., are also manufactured.
Zurich capital of the canton of Zurich
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
capital of the canton of Zurich; 41 miles N. N. E. of Lucerne and 43 N. W. of Glarus, at the point where the Limmat issues from the Lake of Zurich and unites with its tributary the Sihl. It is one of the most prosperous manufacturing and commercial towns of Switzerland; yet the narrow streets and lofty houses of its older quarters, on the high ground E. of the river, give it the quaint appearance of a mediæval city. Of the Romanesque cathedral, erected in the 11th and 13th centuries, Zwingli was pastor, as Lavater was of the Peterskirche. The Polytechnic (1864) houses the university, founded in Fuseli was a native. Pop. with suburbs, about 160,000.
Zurich LAKE OF, or ZURICHER- SEE
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LAKE OF, or ZURICHER- SEE, a sheet of water chiefly in the canton of Zurich, but partly in Schwyz.. Its greatest length is about 27 miles; while its greatest breadth does not exceed 3 miles, and its greatest depth 600 feet. Its scenery is distinguished not so much for grandeur as for beauty. A considerable traffic is carried on on the lake by means of sailing vessels and a number of steamers. It is well supplied with fish. Its chief feeder is the Linth canal, communicating with the Wallenstattersee. It discharges itself at the town of Zürich by the Limmat.
Zurich TREATY OF, a convention signed in Zurich Nov
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
TREATY OF, a convention signed in Zurich Nov. 10, 1859, by the plenipotentiaries of France and Austria, which embodied the conditions of the preliminaries of peace agreed to at Villafranca, on the part of Napoleon II. and the Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph, and closed the Franco-Italian war by Austria's abandonment of her right to Lombardy.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's counted "about 10,000 silk looms in the city and canton" in 1910 and called Zurich "the busiest manufacturing town in Switzerland"; the silk and cotton mills have almost entirely vanished, and the city's wealth now comes from banking and insurance, centred on the Paradeplatz, where UBS absorbed its old rival Credit Suisse in 2023. Population has grown from the 152,942 reported for 1901 to roughly 440,000 in the city and about 1.4 million in the wider region. The "Polytechnic" that Collier's mentions is now ETH Zurich, a separate institution from the university and one of the leading technical schools in Europe, while the quaint old quarter east of the Limmat and Zwingli's Grossmünster still stand much as described. Collier's figure of 600 feet for the lake's greatest depth is too generous: modern soundings put it at about 136 metres, roughly 445 feet.
Written for this edition, 2026.