Swiss Council of States Totally Explained

Everything about The Council Of States totally explained

The Council of States of Switzerland (, ) is the smaller chamber of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, and is considered the Assembly's upper house. There are 46 Councillors.
   Twenty of the country's cantons send two Councillors each. The smaller cantons of Obwalden, Nidwalden, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Appenzell Innerrhoden send one Councillor each. The latter six have traditionally been considered "half-cantons", because of their smaller size in area and in population, but in practice operate as full cantons.
   The Councillors serve for four years, and are not bound in their vote to instructions from the Cantonal authorities. Under the Swiss Federal Constitution, the mode of election is left to the cantons, the proviso being that it must be a democratic method; however, all cantons now provide for the councillors to be chosen by popular election. In all Cantons except for Zug and Appenzell Innerrhoden, the Councillors are elected concurrently with the members of the National Council. In the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden the representatives are elected by the physically convened popular assembly (Landsgemeinde). With the exception of the Canton of Jura, where a proportional representation election system is used, the representatives are elected by majority vote.
   There are currently (2005) 11 women in the Council of States (23.9%).

List of members

Seats by party

Population per seat

The Council of States represents the principle of federalism of the Swiss constitutional state: seats are distributed by state (canton), not by population. Consequently, the number of people represented by a single seat in the Council of State varies by a factor of 40, from 15,000 for Appenzell Innerrhoden to 600,000 for Zurich.

Abbr	Canton	Seats	Population ¹	per seat	²
ZH	Zurich	2	1,228,600	614,300	1.0
BE	Bern	2	947,100	473,550	1.3
VD	Vaud	2	626,200	313,100	2.0
AG	Aargau	2	550,900	275,450	2.2
BL	Basel-Landschaft	1	261,400	261,400	2.4
SG	St. Gallen	2	452,600	226,300	2.7
GE	Geneva	2	414,300	207,150	3.0
BS	Basel-Stadt	1	186,700	186,700	3.3
LU	Lucerne	2	350,600	175,300	3.5
TI	Ticino	2	311,900	155,950	3.9
VS	Valais	2	278,200	139,100	4.4
SO	Solothurn	2	245,500	122,750	5.0
FR	Fribourg	2	239,100	119,550	5.1
TG	Thurgau	2	228,200	114,100	5.4
GR	Graubünden	2	185,700	92,850	6.6
NE	Neuchâtel	2	166,500	83,250	7.4
SZ	Schwyz	2	131,400	65,700	9.4
AR	Appenzell Ausserrhoden	1	53,200	53,200	11.5
ZG	Zug	2	100,900	50,450	12.2
NW	Nidwalden	1	38,600	38,600	15.9
SH	Schaffhausen	2	73,400	36,700	16.7
JU	Jura	2	69,100	34,550	17.8
OW	Obwalden	1	32,700	32,700	18.8
GL	Glarus	2	38,300	19,150	32.1
UR	Uri	2	35,000	17,500	35.1
AI	Appenzell Innerrhoden	1	15,000	15,000	41.0
Overall		46	7,261,200	157,852	3.9

Notes: ¹ Population data from Cantons of Switzerland (2001). ² Relative representation compared to Zürich.

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