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Romandy ( or Suisse romande; Arpitan: Romandia)Before World War I, the term French Switzerland () was also used. ( or Welschland, , ) is the Swiss French historical and cultural region of Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 million people, or 22.8% of the Swiss population, lived in Romandy. The majority of the romand population lives in the western part of the country, especially the Arc Lémanique region along Lake Geneva, connecting Geneva, Vaud, and the Lower Valais.
Swiss French is the sole official language in four Swiss cantons: Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura. Additionally, French and German have co-official status in three cantons: Fribourg/Freiburg, Valais, and Berne/Bern.
The term Suisse romande has become widely used since World War I; before World War I and during the 19th century, the term Suisse française "French Switzerland" was used, reflecting the cultural and political prestige of France (the canton of Vaud having been created by Napoleon out of former Bernese subject territories, while Geneva, Valais and Jura were even briefly joined to France, as the Léman, Simplon and Mont-Terrible départements, respectively). Suisse romande is used in contrast to Suisse alémanique ("Alemannic Switzerland") the term for Alemannic German speaking Switzerland. Formed by analogy is Suisse italienne ("Italian Switzerland"), which is composed of Ticino and of a part of Grisons.
In Swiss German, French-speaking Switzerland is known as Welschland or Welschschweiz, and the French-speaking Swiss as Welsche, using the old Germanic term for non-Germanic speakers also used in English of Welsh language (see Walhaz). The terms Welschland and Welschschweiz are also used in written Swiss Standard German but in more formal contexts they are sometimes exchanged for französischsprachige Schweiz ("French-speaking Switzerland") or französische Schweiz ("French Switzerland"). Simple Westschweiz "western Switzerland" may also be used as a loose synonym.
| French is the sole official language in the following cantons: | ||||||
| Three regions located in French-German bilingual cantons have a French-speaking majority: | ||||||
The linguistic boundary cuts across Switzerland north-to-south, forming the eastern boundary of the canton of Jura and then encompassing the Bernese Jura, where the boundary frays to include a number of bilingual communities, the largest of which is Biel/Bienne. It then follows the border between Neuchâtel and Bern and turns south towards Murten, again traversing an areal of traditional bilinguism including the communities of Morat and Fribourg. It divides the canton of Fribourg into a western French-speaking majority and an eastern German-speaking minority and then follows the eastern boundary of Vaud with the upper Saane/Sarine valley of the Bernese Oberland. Cutting across the High Alps at Les Diablerets, the boundary then separates the French-speaking Lower Valais from the Alemannic-speaking Upper Valais beyond Sierre. It then cuts southwards into the High Alps again, separating the Val d'Anniviers from the Mattertal.
Historically, the linguistic boundary in the Swiss Plateau would have more or less followed the Aare during the early medieval period, separating Burgundy (where the Burgundians did not impose their Germanic language on the Gallo-Roman population) from Alamannia; in the High Middle Ages, the boundary gradually shifted westward and now more or less corresponds to the western boundary of the Zähringer possessions, which fell under Bernese rule in the late medieval period, and does not follow any obvious topographical features. The Valais has a separate linguistic history; here, the entire valley, as far as it was settled, would have been Gallo-Roman speaking until its upper parts were settled by Highest Alemannic speakers entering from the Bernese Oberland in the high medieval period (see Walser).
Today, the differences between Swiss French and Standard French are minor and mostly lexical, although remnants of dialectal lexicon or phonology may remain more pronounced in rural speakers. In particular, some parts of the Swiss Jura participate in the nocat=y dialect spoken in the Franche-Comté region of France.
Since the 1970s, there has been a limited amount of linguistic revivalism of Franco-Provençal dialects, which are often now called Arpitan (a 1980s neologism derived from the dialectal form of the word alpine) and their area Arpitania.
Historically, most of the Romandy has been strongly Protestant, especially Calvinism; Geneva was one of the earliest and most important Calvinist centres. However, Roman Catholicism continued to predominate in Jura, Valais, and Fribourg. In recent decades, due to significant immigration from France and Southern European countries, Catholics can now be found throughout the region.
The Tour de Romandie is an annual cycling event on the UCI World Tour, often considered to be an important race in preparation for the Tour de France.
It is a collection of Libraries of Western Switzerland that are based in the region of Romandy.
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