![The whole wide world reflected in Swiss place names. Illustration by Marco Heer.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/titelbild-marco2-300x225.jpg)
From Vesuvius to Moscow – without leaving Switzerland
Sibirie, Afrika, Le Brésil, Himalaia – as toponyms go, none of these place names sounds particularly Swiss. And yet they are all to be found right here in Switzerland, where an estimated several hundred such ‘exotic’ names have been borrowed from elsewhere.
![Vesuv(ius) in Heiligenschwendi.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/vesuv-bollmann-284x300.jpg)
![Vesuvius in Italy, 1926.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/vesuv-echt-300x233.jpg)
![The Jaun Valley, 1988.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/jauntal-300x204.jpg)
Humorous names
![Ramsen with the house names Warschau, Moskau and Petersburg on the Siegfried Map.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/siegfriedkarte-erstausgabe-ramsen-300x200.jpg)
Far, far away
Emigrants…
![The now cleared area of Argentinie in Niederweningen, aerial view.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/flur-argentinie-300x213.jpg)
…and homecomers
![Im Kaliforni district in Heimberg.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/im-kaliforni-be-300x218.jpg)
Foreign armies
![General Suvorov’s troops doing battle with French troops on the Devil’s Bridge. Artist unknown, circa 1800.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/kampf-auf-der-teufelsbrucke-300x197.jpg)
World history reflected in Switzerland
The Holy Land
![The Holy Land in Bern. Bern, Bethlehemacker building project, 1982.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/bethlehemacker-300x184.jpg)
The eternal Saracens
![Postcard of Pontresina, around 1913.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/pontresina-1-300x192.jpg)
Reflecting our perceptions of the world
Multilingual Switzerland
In Switzerland, you can hear countless dialects, accents, types of slang and immigrant languages in addition to the four national languages. Visit the National Museum Zurich for a sensory journey through Switzerland’s language areas. Find out through interactive sound technology how the predecessors of our languages emerged, evolved or died out, how new linguistic and cultural borders arose and how they were (and still are) disputed.