1.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
2.
Canton of Vaud
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The Canton of Vaud is the third largest of Swiss cantons by population and fourth by size. The capital and biggest city is Lausanne, officially designated Olympic Capital by the International Olympic Committee, the canton had 725,944 inhabitants as of 2011. Along the lakes, Vaud was inhabited in prehistoric times, later, the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii inhabited the area. The tribe was defeated by Caesars troops in 58 BC and as a consequence the Romans settled the area, the towns of Vevey and Lausanne are two of the many towns established by the Romans. In 27 BC the state of Civitas Helvetiorum was established around the capital of Avenches, there are still many Roman remains around the town today. Between the 2nd and the 4th century the area was invaded by Alemannic tribes. The Merovingian Franks later replaced the Burgundians and their occupancy did not last long either, and in 888 the area of the canton of Vaud was made part of the Carolingian Empire. In 1032 the Zähringens of Germany defeated the Burgundians, the Zähringens themselves were succeeded in 1218 by the counts of Savoy. It was only under the counts of Savoy that the area was given political unity, a part stretching from Attalens to the River Sarine, in the north, was absorbed by the canton of Fribourg. As the power of the Savoys declined at the beginning of the 15th century the land was occupied by troops from Bern, by 1536 the area was completely annexed. The Bernese occupiers were not popular amongst the population, later, inspired by the French Revolution, the Vaudois drove out the Bernese governor in 1798 and declared the Lemanic Republic. Under Napoleon I, it became the canton of Léman, in 1803, Vaud joined the re-installed Swiss confederation. In spite of Bernese attempts to reclaim Vaud, it has remained a sovereign canton ever since, separation was prevented at the cost of very few lives. The current constitution dates from 14 April 2003, replacing the one from 1885, in the Jura mountains in the west, the canton borders the French departments of Ain, Jura, and Doubs. In the east, it borders the cantons of Fribourg and Bern, the total area is 3,212 square kilometres. Along with the canton of Berne, Vaud is one of the two cantons whose territory extends from the Jura to the Alps, through the three geographic regions of Switzerland. The areas in the south east are mountainous, situated on the side of the Bernese Alps. This region is named the Vaud Alps
3.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Swiss Federal Railways
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Swiss Federal Railways is the national railway company of Switzerland. It is usually referred to by the initials of its German, French and Italian names, either concatenated as SBB CFF FFS, the Romansh version of its name, Viafiers federalas svizras, is not officially used. The company is headquartered in Bern and it used to be a government institution, but since 1999 it has been a special stock corporation whose shares are held by the Swiss Confederation or the Swiss cantons. Swiss Federal Railways is divided into three divisions and two groups, Passenger traffic Freight traffic Infrastructure Real estate Core services The corporation is led in an entrepreneurial manner, a performance agreement between Swiss Federal Railways and the Swiss Confederation defines the requirements and is updated every four years. At the same time the rates per train and track-kilometre are defined. Subsidiary SBB GmbH is responsible for traffic in Germany. It operates the Wiesentalbahn and the Seehas services, further subsidiaries are Thurbo, RegionAlps, AlpTransit Gotthard AG, Cisalpino AG and TiLo. The Swiss Federal Railways hold significant shares of the Zentralbahn and Lyria SAS, to maintain heritage, the Stiftung Historisches Erbe der SBB was founded in 2002. This foundation takes care of the rolling stock and runs a technical library in Bern, document and photographic archives. The metre gauge Brünigbahn was SBBs only non-standard gauge line, until it was out-sourced and merged with the Luzern-Stans-Engelberg-Bahn to form the Zentralbahn, SBB is often known as the worlds most on time type of transportation In the 19th century, all Swiss railways were owned by private ventures. The economic and political interests of companies led to lines being built in parallel. On 20 February 1898 the Swiss people agreed in a referendum to the creation of a railway company. In the meantime, the trains were run by the Swiss Confederation on behalf of the private companies, on 1 January 1999 the Swiss Federal Railway has been excluded from the Federal Administration and became a fully state-owned limited company regulated by public law. First class compartments were discontinued on 3 June 1956, and second and third class accommodation was reclassified as first and second class, in 1982 SBB introduced the Taktfahrplan, with trains for certain destinations leaving every 60 minutes, greatly simplifying the timetable. On December 12,2004 the first phase of Bahn2000, a programme to improve the companys services, was put into effect. The core element was the Zurich-Bern-Basel triangle, where travel times between the cities was reduced to one hour, resulting in good connections from these stations for most trains. Some connections between cities got two trains in each direction per hour or more, and the S-Bahn services were intensified to four or more trains per hour, because of these changes 90% of the timetable was changed, 12% more trains were scheduled and travel times generally improved. It was the greatest timetable change since the introduction of the Taktfahrplan, on 22 June 2005 a short circuit on a long distance power transmission line in central Switzerland led to a chain reaction
6.
TGV Lyria
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TGV Lyria is the brand name used for TGV railway lines connecting France and Switzerland. Initially, the corporation was a groupement dintérêt économique between SNCF and SBB CFF FFS whose goal was the creation of a TGV service between Gare de Lyon and Lausanne/Bern, today, the corporation is officially a limited company according to French law. SNCF owns 74% of the capital and SBB CFF FFS the remaining 26%, starting in mid-1961, the route between Paris and Lausanne was operated by the Trans Europ Express Cisalpin trains, which continued on to Milan. On January 22,1984, this service was replaced by a new TGV service with tri-current locomotives, in the spirit of the previous European expresses, the trains were christened with names, Champs-Elysées, Lemano, Lutetia and Cisalpin. On May 31,1987, the service was rebranded as EuroCity. By this time, a service to Bern was in place as well, the GIE was created for the first time on May 23,1993, to operate the segments between Paris and Lausanne/Bern. Service to Geneva was not covered at that time, during the winter of 1995–1996, a single roundtrip per day was extended from Lausanne to Brigue to stop at stations serving ski resorts in the Rhône Valley. As was the case with other trains with service, these trains were branded as TGV des Neiges. On September 28,1997, the service was reorganized and rebranded as Ligne de Cœur. On March 4,2002, the name Lyria was applied for the first time to the service, the name then slowly came to stand for all TGV services between France and Switzerland and was applied to Paris–Geneva trains around January 2005. Service to Geneva had existed as part of LGV Sud-Est since 1981, at the end of 2005, Lyria transported its 3 millionth passenger. Consequently, service from Paris departed from Gare de lEst instead of Gare de Lyon until 2011, the service now uses new stock, the TGV POS. In February 2011, service improvements were announced, with a fleet of 19 TGV POS trains offering increased frequencies, since December 12,2010, travel time on the Paris–Geneva line has improved with the reconstruction of the Haut-Bugey line, which connects Bourg-en-Bresse and Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. Until then, only the part of the line was open. Travel time between Paris and Geneva reduced by 30 minutes, to 3 hours and 5 minutes, and track capacity was also increased, in 2011, with the completion of the LGV Rhin-Rhône, travel time between Paris and Basel/Zurich has been reduced by 30 minutes. The departure station in Paris has returned to Gare de Lyon, since summer 2006,5 trains were renovated to offer a better quality of service. The maximum speed is attained on the LGV Sud-Est between Aisy-sous-Thil and Valenton, service to Geneva is operated using classic TGV Sud-Est equipment, that is, bi-current sets relieved by TGV Duplex. Trains, with the exception of those running to Geneva, used to carry the Ligne de cœur logo, the CFF logo was also added to their cars during April 2006
7.
Jura foot railway line
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It is one of two routes used by intercity trains between Geneva and Zürich. The other is the Midland line which connects Olten via Langenthal, Burgdorf, Bern, Fribourg, the line was built by five railway companies, which after several mergers were absorbed into the Swiss Federal Railways in 1903. The line is electrified at 15 kV16.7 Hz AC and is two track almost throughout, the Jura foot line was built in several stages. The oldest part are the sections opened by the West Switzerland Company in May 1855 from Yverdon-les-Bains to Bussigny-près-Lausanne, on 5 May 1856, the company opened two new sections, Renens to Lausanne and the connecting curve from Morges to Bussigny. The OS opened a line from Morges to Coppet on 14 April 1858, on 25 June 1858 the OS connected with Geneva with the opening of the Versoix–Geneva route of the Geneva–Versoix Railway. In 1859 it opened the section from Yverdon to Vaumarcus, on 7 November 1859 the Franco–Swiss Company opened an extension from Vaumarcus to the village of Frienisberg, near Le Landeron on Lake Biel. A temporary station was established at a pier in Frienisberg for a link by boat across Lake Biel to a station at Nidau near Biel built by the Swiss Central Railway. From the other direction in 1857 the SCB opened the line from Olten via Herzogenbuchsee to Solothurn and this route avoided having to cross the Aare river between Olten and Solothurn, but is longer than the route opened in 1876. In 1858 the SCB built a line from Biel station to Nidau on Lake Biel. The gap along the shore of Lake Biel from Biel to Landeron was closed on 3 December 1860 by the Swiss East–West Railway. As a result the line from Biel to Nidau closed on 10 December 1860. The last section of the Jura foot line to be completed was the section from Olten to Solothurn via Oensingen opened on 4 December 1876 by the SCB and this was originally planned as part of the Swiss National Railways proposed line from Lake Constance to Lake Geneva. The line from Herzogenbuchsee to Solothurn became a local railway after it was bypassed by the Gäu railway
8.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
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Media related to Lausanne railway station at Wikimedia Commons
