Ticino — Italian-speaking canton of southern Switzerland

The highest point is the Rheinwaldhorn (Italian: Adula) at 3402 m above sea level; the lowest point is at 193 m above sea level on Lake Maggiore and is also the lowest point in Switzerland.

Together with the four southern Grisons valleys of Bergell (Val Bregaglia), Calancatal (Val Calanca), Misox (Val Mesolcina) and Puschlav (Val Poschiavo), it forms the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland (Svizzera italiana).

Ticino makes up the largest part of Italian-speaking Switzerland. It lies on the southern side of the Alps and is largely surrounded by Italy; to the north and northeast it borders the Swiss cantons of Graubünden, Valais and Uri. Campione d'Italia forms an enclave. It covers an area of 2812 square kilometres, which is 7% of the total area of Switzerland. About a quarter of the area is considered unproductive and a third is forested. Important accents are set by the two large lakes, Lake Maggiore (Lago Maggiore or Verbano) and Lake Lugano (Lago di Lugano or Ceresio).

Waters

The canton takes its name from the Ticino River, which rises on the south side of the Gotthard massif at the Nufenen Pass, flows through the Bedretto Valley and the Leventina Valley in a south-easterly direction, and then flows westwards from the cantonal capital Bellinzona through the Magadino Plain into Lake Maggiore.

The main tributaries along this route are the Brenno from the Blenio Valley (Valle di Blenio) and the Moësa from the Misox in Graubünden. The rest of the canton north of Monte Ceneri (Sopraceneri) is also drained into Lake Maggiore by the Maggia and Verzasca rivers. The southern part of the canton (Sottoceneri) drains largely into Lake Lugano and from there via the Tresa also into Lake Maggiore, whose outflow - again called the "Ticino" - flows into the Po just below the town of Pavia.

Parts of the southernmost "tip" of Switzerland, the Mendrisiotto, also ultimately drain into the Po, but not via the Ticino. Coming from the Muggio Valley, the Breggia flows through the basin of Chiasso and joins the waters of the Adda in Lake Como. The western Mendrisiotto is crossed by the small river Gaggiolo, which flows under the name "Rio Ranza" (also "Rio Ranzo" or "Rio Lanza") at Malnate in the Italian province of Varese into the Olona, also a tributary of the Po.

Vegetation

Among the rich flora worth mentioning are the extensive forests of sweet chestnuts. There are only a few other places in the world with such purity and surface area. In addition, palm trees, cypresses and other Mediterranean plants thrive in Ticino. This is why the canton is known as the "sunroom of Switzerland".

The population of Ticino feels a strong cultural bond with its neighbour Italy. As of 31 December 2019, the population of the canton of Ticino was 351,491, with a population density of 125 inhabitants per square kilometre, which is lower than the Swiss average (208 inhabitants per square kilometre). The proportion of foreigners (registered residents without Swiss citizenship) was 27.6 per cent on 31 December 2019, compared to 25.3 per cent of registered foreigners nationwide. As of January 31, 2021, the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent compared to 3.7 percent at the federal level.

Languages

In Ticino, Italian is the official language. 87.7 percent have Italian as their main language, 10.8 percent German, 5.1 percent French (multiple answers were possible). English was also represented with 3.1 percent.

A large, but declining, proportion of the population speaks local dialects belonging to Lombard ("Ticinés"). According to the 2000 census, in everyday life in Ticino 14 per cent spoke exclusively Lombard and 40 per cent both Lombard and standard Italian. Since the northern Italian dialects of Lombardy (including Italian-speaking Switzerland), Piedmont, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna have a Gallo-Romance background, very many expressions resemble French, and nasal sounds and palatal "ö" and "ü" are also common. In the Ticino dialect, for example, it is said:

"un om al gheva dü fiöö" [un ˈom al gˈeva dy(ː) ˈfjøː], in standard Italian one would say "un uomo aveva due figli" (a man had two sons). "Heart" in dialect is "cör" [køːr], similar to French "cœur" [kœr] rather than Italian "cuore" [kwɔre]. And "500 pigs" (cinquecento maiali) in Ticino is "cinc-cent ciügn" [ʧinˈʧeːn(t) ˈʧyɲ].

The dialectal vocabulary and folk culture of Ticino and southern Grisons are documented by the Vocabolario dei dialetti della Svizzera italiana.

A special feature is the Walser community of Bosco/Gurin, where German is the traditional language (not to be confused with the official language).

In the canton of Ticino, the Ticino sign language is used, the Lingua dei segni della Svizzera italiana (LIS-SI). It is a dialect of the Lingua dei Segni Italiana (LIS). LIS-SI belongs to the family of French sign languages, like the Swiss-German sign language and the French-Swiss sign language. Ticino sign language has two varieties (Bellinzona and Lugano).

Religions - Denominations

Ticino is strongly Catholic. Even today, the majority of the population of Ticino is a member of the Roman Catholic Church (70.0 percent of the resident population in 2019), which is organized in the diocese of Lugano.

According to a nationwide survey of 200,000 people aged 15 and over conducted by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), 69.6 per cent of respondents in Ticino in 2012 said they were Roman Catholic, 4.4 per cent were Protestant Reformed and 5.3 per cent belonged to other Christian churches. A further 2.0 percent professed to belong to an Islamic community, 0.1 percent to Judaism and 0.5 percent to other religious communities. 16.2 percent described themselves as non-denominational. Since 1980, Ticino has also had a lively Syrian Orthodox community, numbering around 420 families. These are Assyrians who still speak Aramaic as their mother tongue. These oriental Christians come mainly from Tur-Abdin (south-eastern Turkey) as well as from Syria and Lebanon.

depopulation of the mountain valleys

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Ticino was a rural canton. In the mid-19th century, a third of the population lived in villages above 600 m, today it is 7 percent.