9^th World Conference on Climate Change October 12-13, 2020 Zurich, Switzerland

Zürich, is the largest city of Switzerland and capital of the canton of Zürich. Located in an Alpine setting at the northwestern end of Lake Zürich, this financial, cultural, and industrial centre stretches out between two forested chains of hills, about 40 miles (60 km) from the northern foothills of the Alps. Two rivers, the Limmat and Sihl, run through the city. Zürich’s western and northeastern limitations are formed by the Albis mountains (which include the 2,850-foot [870-metre] Üetliberg, considered the “top” of Zürich, with an idyllic view of the lake, mountains, and city) and by Zürichberg, a wooded hilly area. Area city, 34 square miles (88 square km). Pop. (2010) 372,857. Zurich Tourism In the mid-19th century the University of Zürich (1833), maintained by the canton, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (1855) were founded. The University of Zürich was the first university in Europe to accept female students. Zürich also boasts a long line of Nobel Prize winners among its citizenry, particularly in the fields of physics (Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, 1901; Albert Einstein, 1921; and Wolfgang Pauli, 1945), chemistry (Richard Ernst, 1991), and medicine (Rolf Zinkernagel, 1996). Noted Zürich-born authors include Gottfried Keller, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, and Max Frisch. The contemporary city Zürich is at the core of a constantly expanding metropolitan area that encompasses parts of central, northern, and eastern Switzerland. It is the industrial, financial, and cultural centre of the country and one of the most cosmopolitan and dynamic Swiss cities. Throughout the city centre, green space extends to the shores of Lake Zürich, which are lined by attractive public parks, and up to the slopes of Zürichberg. The city has a diverse ethnic composition; more than one-third of its population is made up of immigrants. The largest immigrant groups are from Italy, the Balkans, Portugal, and Germany. There is also a small population of non-European immigrants. The integration of immigrants, particularly those displaced by conflict in the Balkans and those from non-European countries, posed a series of problems, especially for schools, at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. The resulting ethnic tensions eased, however, with the city’s introduction of social programs targeted at immigrants and as tighter restrictions were instituted for immigration from outside the EU. Switzerland and Zürich were not inundated with as many migrants as other western European countries were during the migrant crisis of 2015–16, partly because the Muslim diaspora in Switzerland was small, making it a less attractive destination for those fleeing the Syrian Civil War and other turbulent events in the Middle East and Africa.