World Atlas of Swiss Places

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New Geneva, Ireland A bloodless uprising against aristocratic rule occurred in Geneva in 1782. King George III of England offered the defeated rebels - intellectuals and craftsmen - asylum in Ireland. The hardworking Protestants were to set a good example to the local population. Benno Gut

The harbour of Passage East, to the east of the town of Waterford in what is now the Republic of Ireland, was to have been part of the territory of New Geneva. But construction never started. Benno Gut

The potential emigrants - who included Geneva's watchmakers - had been reconciled with their aristocratic government. The planned Enlightenment city was never built. Today the main industry in the region is oyster farming. Benno Gut

Berna, 3569 Santa Fe, Argentina Berna was founded in 1889 by Hans Liechti, who had emigrated to Argentina ten years earlier at the age of 45. His sawmill did well from its business with the railway company which built the line to the province of Santa Fe. Benno Gut

The last train to Berna was in 1992, and after that the place went into decline. All that remains is a rusting railway carriage. The population stands at 979. Benno Gut

The mini-chalet in a sports hall in the neighbouring town of Romang comes from a carnival float. Names like Alemann, Habegger and Reutemann are a reminder of the Swiss pioneers. Benno Gut

The Volga villages in Russia Luzern, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, Unterwalden, Zug, Zürich, Glarus - those were the names of the villages established along the stretch of the Volga betwen the industrial city of Balakovo and the little town of Marx in the years 1767-1768. The German-born Russian empress Catherine the Great settled immigrants here, chiefly from Germany. Benno Gut

Betweeen 1762 and 1775, the Volga region saw the arrival of 30,632 emigrants, the so-called Volga Germans. They included about 1,000 Swiss. Benno Gut

The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created In 1924. But in 1941 the German-speaking population was deported to Central Asia, for fear that they might collaborate with the Nazis. In 1942 all the villages were given Russian names. Benno Gut

Villa Lugano, 1439 Capital Federal, Argentina Villa Lugano lies 20 km south of the centre of Buenos Aires. José Ferdinando Francisco Soldati founded it in 1908 and named it in memory of his old homeland. What today is an area of social housing is the place where Argentina's first airfield was established in 1910. Benno Gut

At the end of the 1930s the 12-storey concrete shell known as "Elefante Blanco" was supposed to become Latin America's biggest hospital. It was never completed. Today about 120 families live on the lower floors, which are at permanent risk of collapse. Benno Gut

Many of the people living in the "Villas Miserias" slum come from Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. Villa Lugano has the most slums and run-down housing complexes in the whole of Buenos Aires. Benno Gut

St. Maurice 42003, Algeria The village once called St Maurice is today Haï Mouaz M'hamed. In 1851 the French colonial authorities placed 27 immigrant families, mainly poor peasants from the lower Valais, in four Swiss hamlets in the surroundings of the little town of Koléa. Valais songwriter Louis Gard wrote a song about leaving the homeland, with the chorus: "Amis, partons pour Alger, l'Algérie, c'est la vie." ("Friends, let's go off to Algiers, Algeria is life".) Benno Gut

Life for the peasants was tough. Sandy soil, locusts and drought meant poor harvests. Only a few families stayed on. During the war for independence many of the settlers left their homes and farms and their property was nationalised. A few of the original houses and a still functioning well bear witness to the village's colonial past. Benno Gut

Berne, Indiana, USA The Muensterberg clock tower built in 2010 is a replica of the Zytglogge in Bern, and pays homage to the town's Mennonite founders, who emigrated in 1852 from their farms on the Montagne de Moutier - Münsterberg in German - in the Bernese Jura area. Benno Gut

Berne is passionate about maintaining its Swiss heritage. Every year in the last weekend of July it holds its Swiss Days festival. The Horse Pull Competition involves horses pulling heavy weights. Benno Gut

Neuenschwander, Habegger, Eicher, Sprunger, Lehmann are still all common names in Berne, which is the furniture capital of Indiana. Some 6,000 Amish live in the surrounding area. Many of the inhabitants remember grandparents who spoke Swiss German. Today they are all Americans and speak only English. Benno Gut

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Switzerland isn’t the only country where you can find towns called Bern, Zurich or Geneva. Over the years Swiss emigrants have settled in every continent, and often named their new homes after their old ones.

Journalist Petra Koci was fascinated when she discovered just how many such places there are, and decided to track some of them down. She travelled all over the world in her search for towns and villages bearing names from all three of Switzerland’s official languages – German, French and Italian.

She has published a book, Weltatlas der Schweizer Orte, describing her discoveries.

The history of the “Swiss” places could hardly be more diverse. Some have developed into thriving towns, proud of their Swiss connection, while in others the Swissness has almost completely disappeared.

Berne, Indiana even has a model of the Zytglogge, the famous clock tower landmark in the original Bern.

Two Italian-speaking cities have given their names to very different places. The Villa Lugano quarter is a rough area of the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires where the only reminder of Switzerland is its station built in Swiss style, while Locarno Springs is part of a rural settlement in Australia, where many descendants of Ticinese families still live.

In Algeria, the village once called St Maurice has changed its name completely, and only a few buildings hint at the Swiss presence. The villages established by Swiss along the Volga have also lost their names – but have kept a hint of their origins. Basel is now Vasilyevka (Vasiliy is the Russian equivalent of the name Basil), and Unterwalden is Podlesnoye – both meaning “under the forest”.

And strangest of all, Koci found a Zurich in the Netherlands that has no Swiss connection at all: the name is derived from an old Friesian word meaning “southern shore”.

Pictures: Benno Gut, from: Petra Koci: Weltatlas der Schweizer Orte, Zurich: Limmat Verlag, 2013