Geography Now! SWITZERLAND

all right we have now reached switzerland alps cheese neutrality banks well switzerland didn't start off that way it was basically a bunch of mountain folk that built an entire economy off of what are essentially european ninjas and now goes down they have a bunch of bunkers they can hide in in case of nuclear war happens but we'll get into that later in the meantime here's the intro song it's time to learn geography now hey everybody i'm your host barbs get your geography now merch geographynow.com not selling out if it's your brand in any case switzerland the crossroads of the germanic and latin worlds known as the confederation helvetica despite not actually being a confederation named after the helveti tribe which were actually celtic we should hang out sometime that were mostly wiped out and driven away by the latins and germanic peoples oh well okay but anyhow so i actually promised my swiss friend herman that he could be in this episode with me and i wanted to fly him out here to los angeles to co-host unfortunately at the time of filming this episode the u.s had restrictions on europeans entering our country and the actual date of acceptance for europeans to enter would take way too long so i decided if i can't fly him out here why don't i just fly out there and make a makeshift geography now studio set and have him in the episode here i go [Music] oh made it and guys say hi to mr herman hello nice to meet you ah switzerland again i'm super short so i gotta step on a box what does it mean to you herman to be swiss there's of course the whole cheese and chocolate thing for me to be honest we are quite grateful that we live in this nice country which is just uh safe stable and it has been like this for a long time by the way guys uh this is the guy that was in my heritage trip video uh this is my swiss go-to guy you're an expert on switzerland right sure all right and with that let's move on let's find switzerland on the map shall we [Music] so switzerland is kind of a unique place in europe mostly because of the way how it was formed you see most countries had a king but switzerland didn't it was just a bunch of annoyed mountain folk who didn't want to align with any king and became independent now there's a lot of disagreement on exactly how switzerland was formed some people say maybe it was the medieval times some people say it was the more modern napoleonic wars so technically the earliest form of switzerland was after the rootless war uri swedes and untervalden agreed to have an alliance it was basically like hey schweetz how's it going hey man this army just came in and attacked me for no reason too are we talking about the armies coming through without our permission yes oh my god so annoying you know what we should do we should form my um federation federation confederation do it like let's form a confederation together then later it was like hey can we join please can i join you just like i don't speak the language but we'd like to join this gives me an idea maybe i should expand the point is switzerland started to grow and today you have the switzerland you see before you locked away safely in the alps let's go to the map now shall we first of all switzerland is a landlocked nation located at the convergence point of western central and southern europe surrounded by five countries remember don't forget little liechtenstein the country is a federal republic made up of 26 cantons each with their own unique flag and coat of arms however keep in mind six of these cantons are considered traditional half cantons which means they are grouped into three pairs that share a counselor in their government in order to maintain a somewhat decentralized government system that keeps cantons happy technically switzerland has no official capital as stated by their constitution but bern is considered the de facto capital as it holds the house of parliament and other federal authorities the country's largest city though would be zurich located in the northeastern part of the country it also hosts the largest and busiest airport zurich international and from there the next largest cities are geneva and basil which also carry respectively the second and third busiest airports as well in fact about 75 of the population actually lives in the north swiss plateau even though it only makes up about 30 percent of the land's surface speaking of which the only ambiguous dispute they have is with germany and austria over the bodensee or lake constance three countries have never formally established borders and they kind of just don't say anything in any case switzerland also has some other unique border anomalies for one by shaft housing switzerland tried to grab as much land as they could north of the rhine river leaving a unique layout of territory grabs that jutting to germany and it even leaves one exclave of germany entirely within switzerland boosting in amherst head down south to the ticino canton and you have the campione d'italia which is basically one big casino resort it is an exclave of italy completely engulfed within switzerland only about a half mile or less than one kilometer over a hill away from italy finally if you go up to basil you have some very weird skinny land salients that jut into france for no logical reason like this one by the town of riti which at its narrowest choke point is less than 230 feet or 70 meters wide transport in switzerland is top-notch though well-paved highways tunnels and train networks connect every region of switzerland the biggest and most proud engineering project that the country has ever gone through though would probably be the gothard based tunnel it is the longest rail tunnel and deepest traffic tunnel in the world effectively cutting through the alps connecting the canton of uri with ticino this tunnel has heavily bolstered the efficiency of switzerland's freight and passenger transport as about 11 000 people and about 70 000 tons of cargo are able to swiftly pass by daily fun fact because of hermann me and my mom actually got to go see lichtenstein he drove us all the way from zurich all the way through liechtenstein in austria and we ended up in lindau germany where we met the worst waiter ever at a casino restaurant i remember this guy was horrible in switzerland public transport is really good you can get almost anywhere by train that's the jungfraujoch bond which brings you above 3500 meters but that's kind of like more of a touristy thing right yeah i've never been there speaking of trains you said something about like they donate the old ones right yeah actually trams the trams of zurich are going to ukraine and the trams from basil are going to um belgrade the interesting thing is that historically some places that are actually outside of modern-day switzerland used to be protectorates or associates of switzerland they are mulhouse which lies in today's france rottweil in germany baltellina and bormio which today lie in italy even though the austrian strait of foralberg once voted to become part of switzerland in world war one we decided to better not take them in you rejected them now another thing about switzerland you have to understand is that they kind of have like two imaginary lines based off of the cultural regions you can explain what are they hermann there's the rusty groban separating the french-speaking part of switzerland from the german and then there's the polenta robin which is between the german part and the south which speaks italian basically one side drinks beer the other wine due to their history of constantly being invaded or outside forces threatening or just generally bothering them the swiss have developed a culture of let's just kind of call it heavy defensive caution we are neutral but we still are prepared to defend ourselves to make it as expensive as possible for anybody to attack us this is why should the event ever occur the country is loaded with copious amounts of bunkers everywhere like it's actually a law all living units have to have a bunker or something like that right yeah we have a lot of hidden um bunkers and if you go hiking you will just see them but they're nowhere on the map there's no exact number on how many are built but apparently they can protect the entire population plus more right i think the question is for how long right in any case switzerland has so many notable cool sites to see and visit we actually filmed this part before i could audition anybody to do it so uh i'll just uh fill this in with a voice dubbed voice over here's alex hey guys i'm alex i'm from geneva switzerland although i'm currently in mexico here's a few things you should absolutely check out if you ever make it to switzerland check out the jedo fountain the cathedral centre paladins which is home of the united nations and the sun hydrocollided in castles check out the chateau de chion the oberhefen valle and tubion chateau de gria uh boonhauser which is basically a capital check out the bear park uh kindergarten that has over 70 waterfalls the lake lucerne has the lion monument in the chapel bridge with uh yeah 347 ski resorts covering a distance of one and a half thousand miles so i'm at sas face summaries and my personal favorite verb yay for more mediterranean feels check out the old town piazzas and beautiful lakeside views of lugano down in the south of switzerland switzerland also has a bunch of museums and amusement parks so for that check out uh aqua park conan swissvaper park and the geiger museum which is absolutely amazing and if you're looking for an adrenaline rush check out the mountain coasters also my toboggan as well as the stoopbahn funicular which is the steepest funicular in the world but yeah thank you so much have a great day thank you alex you're always going underground for whatever reason yeah if you have a mountain in between two places what are you gonna do which is actually the perfect transition into the next segment now of course you cannot talk about switzerland without talking about the mountains and nature literally the moment you say switzerland obviously images of like snow-capped mountains and valleys and cows with cowbells even the iconic matterhorn probably comes up although 12 people a year usually die on it but yeah it's still very beautiful it's a challenge so let's go to the map and break down switzerland's land makeup now despite switzerland being famous for the alps and being the most mountainous country in europe the actual alps only make up about 60 of the country the remainder of the country is made up of two other geographic zones the swiss or central plateau which is the lowest part of the country and where most of the agriculture and livestock raising is concentrated and the euro mountains in the northwest on the border with france of course in the alps you can find shocker the tallest peak du force pizza just on the border with italy no the famous incredibly difficult to climb matterhorn just a few miles away is not the tallest peak it just looks really cool that's all just to skip away you find the alech glacier the largest glacier in the alps and it is a unesco heritage site from the ice melt of the alps of course you get the source of all the rivers that feed switzerland including the longest river the rhine which shares borders with its neighbors however the longest river fully in switzerland not shared would be the array or our river of course these rivers also feed into the world-renowned lakes of switzerland the largest one being lake geneva or la clemente in which switzerland was like very set on making sure they hooked around the end with geneva and got most of it when splitting it with france nonetheless the largest lake fully in switzerland is neue chatel not to be confused with new chatel in normandy france which is where the soft cheese comes from yeah and those highlights don't even cover a fraction of all the cool nature stuff in in switzerland you can hike then at the end you arrive at the lake and it's perfect is it like fresh enough for you to drink from or no you could maybe but guy might have peed in it five minutes ago ah yeah yeah well switzerland sure is beautiful but when it comes to natural resources we're actually not so rich we don't really have any much of our economy is actually based on industry and services to explain a little bit more about the economy and industrial output here's noah to explain all right let's get to it we all know high-end things like luxury swiss watches and swiss knives are made in switzerland which are by the way a multi-billion dollar industry by the way if you're looking for a backpack swiss gear is amazing i've had one of those backpacks for probably over a decade great stuff good backpacks man but the one industry that everyone takes focus on even though it only makes up about 15 of their economy is the swiss banking system home to two world-renowned companies ubs and credit suisse credit suisse being founded by alfred escher look him up the appeal is that swiss banks offer an insane amount of privacy and confidentiality to explain more about the bank situation here's swiss geograpeep simon good to meet dent hello i am simon and i'm actually from switzerland what part of switzerland bodensee see back in 1713 switzerland's great council decided they would outlaw the financial disclosure to europe's financial elites in addition all forms of bribery were pretty much criminalized since 1934 it was made criminal to disclose the identity of any account holders as long as they didn't have any extreme felony charges even though the interest rates are really low sometimes the rate is even negative which means you have to pay to hold three strengths or to open an account nonetheless our rate of investments are pretty high like at 2.5 percent due to the regular stability of the swiss economy granted there was some controversy as there have been many lawsuits brought against our beautiful banks such as the 1996 holocaust victim class action lawsuit which claimed that swiss banks knowingly concealed assets illegally acquired by the nazis then again in 2009 the us strong-armed switzerland into you know disclosing wealthy assets from 50 000 americans it worked but now you know swiss banks don't accept any americans or even swiss people who move to america or who make a vacation florida if you'd like to open an account just contact me on instagram and it will be totally confidential thank you very much how do you meet thanks simon yeah with great banks comes great liabilities but of course switzerland is more than just banks they have thriving pharmaceutical tech and tourism sectors the pallet is getting dry is that a swiss bottle too that'd be pretty cool if it was they take their agriculture industry very seriously the government actually subsidizes 70 of farms i mean how can you say no to the wonderful dairy provided by swiss cows to explain more about the animal situation here is gary harlow hey guys uh caleb's actually busy he couldn't do this segment but uh we got ian so uh you're gonna beat gary harlow today you're probably gonna mess it up but i don't care yay i'm a screw up for sure switzerland being the alpine nation it is provides quite the habitat for all kinds of strange species the country has 18 official nature parks now in these mountains you have quite a many of mountain adapted undulates much noted are the ibex in the chamois thanks to their two-toed hooves these little guys latch on to the narrowest of walls and this makes you think are they brave or they just stupid i ask myself that a lot unfortunately most of the predators like the gray wolf and the eurasian lynx are incredibly rare brown bears were actually hunted to extinction in 1904. now one species of predator that does thrive in switzerland is the european asp it's a viper and it's well adapted to the high altitudes and the bites extremely painful now unlike most countries switzerland doesn't have a national animal but if you ask around you might find out that the unofficial swiss animal is the iconic swiss cow even though they're not naturally from these here mountains all right well that's it for me fellas this is terrible i'm sorry hannah i'm sorry thanks ian uh anyway we've discussed much of the industry economy and physical makeup that means there's only one more part left food now i love doing this part but i will gracefully step down and let an actual swiss geograpeep take over hello we are maria and terence and today we are going to talk about swiss food we have to talk about cheese of course thousands of varieties of them probably also know the popular dishes fondue and roclet rusty which is like a hash brown alpha macronut silk nutslets bennet plot parve dwar molokov de vincel and desserts possibly and of course chocolate yeah although we don't have cocoa trees here we also invented absinthe which is a super strong alcohol can give you hallucinations then there is also another soft drink called rivella and finally in every swiss kitchen mochi and automotive and like a mini automotive thirstly in a swiss person's hiking backpack that's it and i gotta i gotta try some of those desserts you mentioned all right barbs back to you thank you noah also fun fact because switzerland is so expensive we actually like to go shopping in other countries just because it's cheaper there are some laws what you can bring back like one kilogram of meat five liters of wine or one liter of strong liquor and one kilogram of butter they actually check at the border when you drive through yes but i mean you guys do have good stuff i mean you're well known for your cheese and chocolate we put it on everything you bake something in the oven put some cheese on it you're having sushi why not put some rocklet yeah food always brings people together except for that one time in linda with that waiter i swear seriously dude four years later and you're still traumatized yes i'm still pissed off anyway let's move on switzerland as we already explained has a lot of cantons and there's actually kind of a word you guys have in switzerland explain herman it's adkin austin schaaf what does it mean an oath alliance came along and formed the nation except for ticino which we conquered despite the fact that each of the region kind of has their own canton cultural difference at the end of the day they are all swiss here's how you break down the populace first of all the country has about 8.5 million people and often ranks in the top three global competitive markets and human development index scores on earth ethnically speaking things get a little complicated because swiss censuses only take in data from factors like citizenship and place of birth so the specific details can be a little vague but in the broadest sense it will say that about 75 of the country are swiss nationals and the remaining 25 are resident foreigners one of the highest proportions in the developed world from here things get a little overlappy because within both groups everything breaks down linguistically as well often switzerland will refer to their linguistic groups for data rather than ethnic in which case about 63 of the country are primarily german-speaking swiss 23 are primarily french speaking and somewhere around eight to nine percent are primarily italian speaking finally less than one percent are romance speaking keep in mind this data can apply to anyone from anywhere that claims these languages as primaries regardless of their ethnic background what we do know though is that of the 25 foreign residents about 64 of them are from the eu or efta countries the largest being italians followed by germans and portuguese and french there's a sizable kosovar albanian community and of the asian community sri lankans mostly of tamil descent make up the largest demographic the swiss franc is our currency and we drive on the right side of the road and you guys use the j plug outlet which i hate because there's like an inward diamond shaped divot and my c plug adapters don't fit why do you you guys are trying to do everything to be different from the rest of europe it's so weird well sometimes you introduce a standard before the rest of europe and then it's too late switzerland the dishwashers used to be 55 centimeters and then europe introduced a new standard of 60 centimeters but the problem is it costs more to manufacture in a special size so our dishwashers cost three times as much yay anyway switzerland has four official languages swiss german swiss french swiss italian and romansh even though less than one percent of the country speaks it it's still an official language it's actually pretty closely related to vulgar latin which was spoken in the roman empire and uh it's also a cousin of romanian so most of us know three languages somehow what is the difference between swiss german and hok deutsch spoken in germany so swiss german is a very strong dialect we have dropped for example the simple past tense and uh the germans don't really understand us don't even get started with french swiss as well although i do like how they use the nant and uh without and uh september and don't even get started with ticino italian in fact you know what mateo can explain it here you go this guy can explain so ticino swiss sounds very much like a northern lombardi you can't tell if it's a swiss or not but just by the pronunciation but the sweets have some specific word that gives them up for example they say natal instead of mobile phone or they say lift instead of ashing sorry for saying leave except for this it's just usual northern italian speak anyway regardless of the linguistic background they are not french swiss or german swiss or italians they're all just swiss for what's worth though there's so much backstory with switzerland for example the habsburg family which ruled the austrian hungarian empire for centuries was from habsburg in arghau switzerland but they lost with their knights against the swiss peasants in the battle of morgarten see this is kind of the interesting contrast to the otherwise neutral peaceful image of switzerland comes in the brutal fighting skill of the swiss was so well renowned throughout europe that it actually kind of became like their biggest export all the rulers in europe got swiss mercenaries and in the end it might be a french king fighting an italian army and in the end it's swiss fighting swiss that's so weird and then they actually decided to stop having offensive war and introduce this neutrality nonetheless you know their neutrality has always been kind of pressured throughout the years and it's been kind of pushed explain a little bit more herman in neutrality you also have to treat both sides of the war similar for example you could not trade with any of them but we didn't do that because we didn't want to get invaded by germany so we traded with germany we traded some with the allies in the historic context of being surrounded by the axis powers well you had to to stay neutral you had to do what you had to do how do you deal with all this pressure trying to be neutral when the whole world is not neutral and you're surrounded by everybody it's a tough question but for what it's worth switzerland has known that neutrality has always kind of come at a cost and this is one of the reasons why switzerland is a conscription country you go to military after you're 19 once for half a year and then every year a couple of weeks three or four until you're 30 or 31. there's a disclaimer though there are some exceptions the swiss military has some quotas of how many people they want if you have some health issues you don't have to go to the military but you will be paying three percent of your salary to the army and if you have ethical reasons not to go you can also fill out a form apply to not go to the military but you will have to take one and a half times as much time in something called civil service maybe where you do some some projects for the good of the country so at the end of the day somehow you have to serve switzerland yeah and after the military service you usually take the gun home technically switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership populations in the world this all kind of plays into their unique system of government it's often said that switzerland is in an eternal election campaign so we vote three to four times a year and we also vote regional for people to get into the national council so it's kind of like switzerland focuses more on policies rather than politicians would you say a little bit of both a little bit of both but it's like you're very involved in everything we are involved and if we don't like something there will be a referendum but in switzerland it's relatively easy yeah some cantons have different voting systems like uh voting publicly by raising hand or some weird family sort the head of state of switzerland actually though is the federal council and one of them is the president but it doesn't really matter because it changes every year and he's just one among equals fun fact switzerland can actually deny citizenship to anybody who wants to apply for it in fact in 2010 there was one lady who was denied because her neighbors said she was annoying there's a lot of those stories like somebody not knowing where the baker is in the village because she shops in a big store no password for you in regards to religion like most countries in europe most of the people will at least culturally identify with christianity and in switzerland the case is mostly with catholicism or protestantism it used to be very important my grandma told me her parents would not have accepted her bringing home a catholic but nowadays we don't really care anymore now of course this is one source that played a role in many of the regional differences throughout switzerland and they also kind of have like a healthy level of regional competition and with that let's move on to the sports part with art so sports in switzerland go hand in hand even on the corporate side in fact because the tax laws many european and international sports federations hold their headquarters in switzerland domestically though switzerland has some sports that they actually invented such as schwengen which is played in sawdust and the contenders wear burlap shorts there's also hornesson it's a team sport it's kind of like a mix between golf and baseball in any case when you live in a country with big snowy mountains you're gonna get an emphasis on this is i know a total shocker on winter sports skiing and mountaineering are pretty much taught from adolescence switzerland also invented competitive sledding they invented the first bobsled in bobsled track in saint morris switzerland has done pretty well considering their size in both the summer and winter olympics alpine skiing being their strongest event with 22 gold medals on another note auto racing was actually banned in switzerland they had a huge crash in 1955 that stopped it all but the government made a little loophole exception for electric racing and finally we cannot end this segment without mentioning the most popular athlete i know him roger federer he's part of the big three 20 grand slam singles title winner 103 atp singles titles two-time olympic medalist he has streets named after him coins with his face he's a model for rolex and numerous brands there's a lot of babies out there named after him for sure i once got a trophy for potato sack racing and it was a big deal like my mom was proud of me and i do not know how to end my segment so um thank you art yeah the swiss people have shown that even though they're a small country they still can pack a punch with a competitive side and we have this thing called canternly gauche where each canton really has their own rules and does their own thing to explain a little bit more about the culture and how things kind of go out in that way for switzerland here's random hannah with culture stuff hi guys i'm back and remember you can get a random hand or shirt at geographynow.com the culture of switzerland cannot be easily summarized as a nation that's because it breaks down to each canton having its distinct identity there are lots of stereotypes for them but here are some that you guys told us our gal is known for having bad drivers valet has the most incomprehensible accent while grab boondin has the most beautiful one glarus doesn't exist zurich has a superiority complex and geneva is just the french version of zurich athenzel is known for hippies and alternative medicine funny enough inner oppenzell didn't give women the right to vote until 1991 and the country has a hole till 1971. in fact switzerland is known for having many interesting laws for example if you live in an apartment you are not allowed to make distracting noises after 10 pm you're not allowed to cut your grass hang your laundry or do noisy chores on sunday the swiss really seem to value their silence the swiss are known for their many discoveries and inventions as well such as cellophane and aluminum foil velcro the vegetable peeler the discovery of nucleic acid and dna and they were co-creators of the world wide web notable contemporary icons of swiss culture include figures like globey papamol shellin orsley and the most famous one worldwide heidi they are notable for the visual arts in every field you can find it in everything like basel with its 13th century romanesque architecture to the early 20th century dada movement even helvetica font and its variants originated in switzerland it's one of the preferred fonts that we use on geography now speaking of the arts one way to learn about switzerland is through its films and if you want to learn more about switzerland's films follow my channel filmography now in any case each canton in switzerland has its own festivals and celebrations you have everything from the bassler fastnut where people involved will dress up in masks and throw confetti to um fest held every 12 years in the town of interlaken where men compete to throw massive boulders there's too many festivals we can't go through them all partially because we have to move on which means you know what's coming next the florida man himself keith we need another hurricane [Music] what's up everybody keith here so today i decided to wear my bathrobe because you know you got to live life comfortable by the way guys you can buy a keith shirt look at that design i designed it myself okay so you guys think you know swiss music and all that stuff you probably think of you know yodeling cowbells that's a good start but let's go a little further many experts will agree that european alpine yodeling had its roots in switzerland dating back to the early 1500s the technique was used by herdsmen trying to call their livestock or communicating far distances between villages in the mountains many will say that the traditional national dance music of switzerland though is lander it uses a 3 4 time signature quarter note gets every single beat whatever this style was actually adopted by many classical composers like beethoven uh schubert uh they kind of just you know took it and ran with it okay now let's fast forward a couple hundred years they actually hosted and won the very first eurovision song contest fun fact 30 years later they would actually win again but with celine dion even though she's canadian and for some reason tina turner is a citizen it has nothing to do with banks and money anyway there are tons of music festivals like street parade festivals the montro jazz festival which has had such artists as pat matheny steve morseband i hope to go there at some point goal of mine there's even a statue of freddie mercury as queen recorded many of their top hits in a studio over there all right we don't have time to talk about the entire evolution of the 20th century in the 21st century of swiss musicians and stuff like that but however what i will say is that if you like heavy metals bands you should check out celtic frost which is a great metal band i hope you enjoyed my segment today stay keith everybody thank you keith so something important about switzerland is how they interact with the rest of the world which brings us to the last segment the friend zone oh we have managed to actually touch a bullet and stay neutral throughout the last century which was a quite difficult thing to achieve i mean they're so neutral that even north korea joined the un before them although you guys did host the european union we'll host anything with diplomacy hosted we'll also pay for it but we don't join here's how they played out their diplomacy game in respect to their constitution and overall global reputation switzerland's foreign policy is to traditionally avoid alliances and work for humanitarian efforts that strive for world peace and prosperity this is partially why they host more international organizations than any other country in the world most heavily concentrated in geneva nonetheless with their intense history and background there are some countries that switzerland has to admit they have quite a closer link to if at the very least culturally no one likes to make fun of germans more than the swiss but in reality these two are so heavily tied in especially with the baden-wurttenberg state that borders switzerland the area around the town of rottweil was part of the old swiss confederacy that was lost during napoleonic wars and today the town has an agreement of friendship with switzerland overall south swabian germans and german-speaking swiss generally understand and get each other way better than say a berlin or german in that regard austria has traditionally been one of their biggest rivals in things like sports and outclassing each other with things like classical music architecture and general welfare they both admire each other's systems of operation and many swiss will say that austrians probably get them way better than the germans otherwise france pretty much has the oldest diplomatic exchange when they signed the treaty of perpetual peace in 1516 and the first swiss ambassador abroad was hosted in paris in 1798. today france hosts more swiss people in diaspora than any other country in the world at nearly a quarter million and they appreciate each other's shall we say bougie standards on the other hand italians mostly lombards have been rapidly moving into switzerland mostly in the tatino canton and are really taking advantage of that italian-speaking official status the vatican city to this day still hires swiss guards to stand at the palace a tradition that has been going on since 1506 one of the oldest military units continuously in operation in the world they still dress in traditional renaissance uniforms and are actually trained in combat and small arms it's not just for show when it comes to their best friends though most swiss will tell you oh we're neutral we can't say we have a best friend but after you get them a little tipsy and ask them one more time they might make a freudian slip and say little lichtenstein switzerland and little lichtenstein go hand in hand they are irrefutably inseparable liechtenstein is basically switzerland's adorable little baby sibling about 200 years younger they not only share currencies and speak almost the exact same german dialect they have a customs union open borders and the same stance on armed neutrality but switzerland also agrees to protect them if anything happens represent them in any international treaty negotiations or abroad if they are unable to and even when switzerland makes mistakes and does things like accidentally firing an artillery shell at a ski resort in 1968 or accidentally invades them because the soldiers couldn't read maps lichtenstein is just happy to see them and offers them drinks upon arrival alright and in conclusion herman take it away you're the swiss guy i'm out switzerland is a beautiful country where it's really nice to live and enjoy a nice and peaceful life or have a nice vacation if you bring the necessary cash well thank you guys so much thank you herman for being this video it was so fun filming with you i can't believe i flew out here to just see you stay tuned syria is coming up next [Music] you

Channel: Geography Now

Views: 1,052,879

Keywords: Geography, facts, info, cool, education, learning, countries, history, class, lesson, funny, travel

Id: xY77dfvTVpA

Length: 33min 1sec (1981 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2021