The city of Zurich’s 380,000 inhabitants are set to reach 400,000 by the end of the decade, according to city authorities.

Basing their calculations on the number of planned constructions, they estimated the population would lie between 409,000 and 415,000 by 2020.

The central district which includes the Escher Wyss quarter is alone expected to grow by 35 per cent, playing a significant role in Zurich’s changing skyline.

While 380,000 people live in the city itself, the agglomeration as a whole has a population of 1.1 million.

Switzerland’s next-largest cities are Geneva (190,000), Basel (170,000) and the capital, Bern (125,000).

Last year it was reported that Switzerland’s population of 7.7 million could rise to 8.35 million by 2030.

At the moment population density in Switzerland – around 186 people per square kilometre – is still far below that of its more crowded European neighbours, the Netherlands and Britain, which have 393 and 248 inhabitants per square kilometre respectively, according to United Nations data for 2005.

The microstate of Malta is the most densely populated. On average, 1,261 people live on each square kilometre there.

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