The latest findings on land use in Swiss cities are astonishing, writes the Swiss Union of Cities in a statement. It conducted the study “Statistics of Swiss Cities 2022” together with the Federal Statistics Office. Their analysts' surveys found that in 2018, settlements accounted for just 23.5 per cent or 95,000 hectares of the total area of the 170 Swiss cities surveyed.
Most of the land in the cities – specifically 32.3 per cent – was covered with forest at the end of the study period from 1985 to 2018. At 30.9 percent, the proportion of agricultural land in 2018 was also significantly larger than the populated areas.
In the six largest Swiss cities (Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Winterthur and Zurich), the proportion of settlements in 2018 was 54.2 per cent, making it significantly higher than in the overall calculation, the statement explains. Forest and agricultural land accounted for 29.6 and 14.3 percent respectively.
Growth was observed above all in residential areas in the reporting period: between 1985 and 2018 it increased by almost 10,000 hectares to 35,000 hectares. The areas used for traffic infrastructure and recreational and green spaces also increased. In contrast, the space occupied by industry in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants fell by 26 per cent between 1985 and 2018.
