Statistical yearbook of Switzerland

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The Statistical Yearbook published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) has been the standard work for Swiss statistics since 1891 . It summarizes the most important statistical results on the population, society, state, economy and environment of the country in German and French. The yearbook not only serves as a reference work, but also provides a comprehensive picture of the social and economic situation in Switzerland with its overview articles . It is currently being published by NZZ Libro .

On the genesis of the yearbook

On June 29, 1887, the National Council first expressed the wish for a statistical yearbook. The Federal Council then agreed to consider the implementation of this suggestion, but wanted to wait a little longer before publishing it in order to be able to include the results of the census of 1888 in the first yearbook (which was then only partially possible).

Two years later - on July 22, 1889 - the director of the statistical office, Dr. Guillaume presented six theses on the planned work at the conference of Swiss statisticians in Aarau , which were accepted after a short discussion. In the first thesis, the purpose of the statistical yearbook was described: The yearbook should bring the main results of Swiss statistics in easily understandable tables and, as far as possible, in comparable annual series. Guillaume mentioned the yearbook of Finland (a bilingual, thin paperback) and that of the German Empire (a somewhat more extensive volume with colored maps) as models.

At the conference of Swiss statisticians on October 18, 1890 in Bern, Guillaume presented the concrete chapter structure and a sample chapter for consultation.

The first Swiss Statistical Yearbook, 270 pages long, was finally presented to the public on April 8, 1891. The reactions were evidently mostly positive, the first publication seemed to meet the requirements that had been made for such a publication.

Development over 100 years

The concept pursued in the early days of the Statistical Yearbook of making information available for wider use beyond the limits of a specialist audience corresponds to the modern principles of statistical diffusion. Associated with this is a similarity in the choice of certain means that can be determined for more than 100 years: the appendix for the first year already contained a visualization of statistics in the form of thematic maps , and the 1897 edition was a pure graphic volume . The "text" element was also used increasingly in 1892.

Statistical yearbooks of Switzerland

Not all editions of the yearbook are modern in this sense: For decades pure tables have been published; Texts and graphics were not used - not least for reasons of cost. It was not until 1989, with the 96th year, that clear steps were taken towards better comprehensibility and user-friendliness, when the yearbookmakers tried again with a redesign to «bring statistics closer to the citizen» (Federal Councilor Cotti in the foreword). In 2001 the Statistical Yearbook underwent another renovation: it currently presents itself as a 900-page, four-color work with an integrated CD-ROM , which in addition to the data also (since 2003) contains an interactive atlas.

Current yearbook concept

The chapters of today's yearbook - they correspond to the areas of official statistics - are each divided into the following four parts:

  1. overview
    The text presents a synthesis of the most important results, analyzes long-term developments and explains the relationships between various key figures. This part, which also contains numerous graphics, is aimed at a broad audience, but should also be useful for more specialized groups such as media people or politicians thanks to its overview function.
  2. Surveys , sources
    This part briefly describes the most important data sources.
  3. glossary
    Central terms are defined here.
  4. Data part
    Finally, the data section corresponds to the classic statistical yearbook and is still the most extensive. It mainly contains tables, but also some graphics and thematic maps.

The CD-ROM for the Statistical Yearbook

The yearbook CD-ROM (not sold individually) contains:

  1. The digital statistical yearbook of Switzerland - an interactive application that allows easy navigation and the search in the electronic versions of all texts, tables, graphics and maps in the printed yearbook. In addition, there are a considerable number of tables - including data at canton and commune level.
  2. The Swiss Statistical Atlas and (from 2011 edition) the European Statistical Atlas, two interactive atlases

The full description and instructions for use of all applications can be found on the CD.

Yearbook archive

Thanks to close cooperation with the Federal Office for Information Technology and Telecommunications (FOITT), the FSO can make an electronic version of all editions of the yearbooks from 1891 to 1988 available - a useful and interesting source for historians, students and all other interested parties.

The files in pdf format offer a view of the original typography, but their texts can be made accessible through electronic research options as easily as those of a modern electronic publication.

Pocket statistics of Switzerland

The "Pocket Statistics of Switzerland" is an annually updated manual with the most important key figures for Switzerland. The 50-page free publication in A5 format contains the most important information from the areas of geography, population, work and employment, economy and transport, social security, as well as education and science. The "Pocket Statistics of Switzerland" is published in five languages: German, French, Italian, Romansh and English.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Statistical Office (ed.), Statistical Yearbook of Switzerland 1989, Zurich 1988, p. 6