Embassy of Switzerland to Sri Lanka and the Maldives

Embassy of Switzerland to Sri Lanka and the Maldives The Embassy of Switzerland in Colombo is in charge of bilateral relations between Switzerland and Sri Lanka as well as the Maldives.

Switzerland has been present in Sri Lanka with a Honorary Consulate since 1916, followed by a legation in 1956. Based on this long history of friendly relations, the embassy continues to be engaged in a broad variety of activities. The Swiss representation in Colombo is active in various fields, including trade and investment, peace, human rights and reconciliation, migration and culture. To achieve our goals, we collaborate with government and private sector representatives, as well as civil society, but also with the Swiss communities in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. In terms of culture, the embassy aims to promote mutual understanding in its work to implement Swiss cultural policy. It strengthens contacts with – and between – relevant cultural institutions of Switzerland and the host country. Events organised or supported by the embassy highlights Switzerland's commitment to culture and help build bridges between different cultures. Swiss exports and tourism is promoted with the host country by establishing contacts with Swiss businesses and providing them with general information and legal advice concerning the economy of the host country. The embassy monitors the economic and political situation in the country and communicates developments that are of interest to Switzerland. Bilateral meetings organised by the embassy are used to strengthen relations between Switzerland and the host country. The embassy fosters collaboration in the areas of science, technology and education with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the two countries in terms of research and innovation. It promotes the exchange of ideas between scientific institutions and universities. It also supports Swiss students in the host country and tries to encourage qualified students from the host country to study in Switzerland. With regard to the media, the embassy acts as an interface between the Swiss government and the official representations in Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

A very warm welcome to Sri Lanka, 🇨🇭Ambassador-designate Daniel Hunn and his wife, Edit!The Embassy is delighted to welc...
02/09/2026

A very warm welcome to Sri Lanka,
🇨🇭Ambassador-designate Daniel Hunn and his wife, Edit!

The Embassy is delighted to welcome them to 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka and looks forward to strengthening the friendship and partnerships between our two countries. 🇨🇭🇱🇰

Switzerland and Sri Lanka join forces on disaster preparednessSwiss Humanitarian Aid (SHA) engineers conducted a trainin...
02/09/2026

Switzerland and Sri Lanka join forces on disaster preparedness
Swiss Humanitarian Aid (SHA) engineers conducted a training with Savordaya on a special Water Treatment Unit in Bandaragama.

Designed to support communities in the aftermath of flooding, the unit can provide clean drinking water for up to 5,000 people per day. This will help ensure rapid access to safe water in an emergency while reducing reliance on costly water trucking.

You probably know the alphorn. But Swiss traditional instruments go much further. 🎶🇨🇭 Behind Switzerland’s musical heri...
02/09/2026

You probably know the alphorn. But Swiss traditional instruments go much further. 🎶🇨🇭

Behind Switzerland’s musical heritage are instruments with surprising shapes, sounds and stories. Some are closely linked to mountain life, while others come from regional traditions that are much less known internationally.

The büchel, for example, is a shorter cousin of the alphorn, especially present in central Switzerland. The hexenscheit, also called “witch’s board”, is a Bernese string instrument played with the fingers.

In Appenzell and Valais, the hackbrett is played with two small hammers, striking the strings instead of plucking them. Its first known mention in Switzerland dates back to 1447, in a Zurich police report about a night disturbance.

Other traditions are even more unexpected. Talerschwingen creates sound by rolling a five-franc coin inside an earthenware bowl, producing a tone that recalls cow bells. And the schwyzerörgeli, a small accordion from Schwyz, remains closely linked to Swiss traditional melodies.

Together, these instruments reveal a lesser-known side of Swiss culture, rich in regional identity, craftsmanship and sound.

https://houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/society/swiss-folk-music-5-traditional-instruments

Switzerland has the world's longest staircase, and a few ways to earn your spot on it. 🇨🇭Running alongside the tracks of...
01/09/2026

Switzerland has the world's longest staircase, and a few ways to earn your spot on it. 🇨🇭

Running alongside the tracks of the Niesenbahn funicular in the Bernese Oberland, the staircase holds the Guinness World Record with 11,674 steps, climbing nearly 1,700 metres over roughly 3.4 kilometres to the summit of the Niesen, nicknamed the "Swiss pyramid." ⛰️

Here's the twist: it wasn't built for hikers. The staircase exists solely for maintenance and emergency access to the funicular line, which is why walking it is generally forbidden.

There are exceptions, though. 👀 Once a year, the Niesen Stairway-Run opens the steps to a limited number of runners. Outside race days, a few official options also allow trained runners to take on the challenge.

Curious to learn more, or thinking about taking on the challenge yourself?
Full details are available on niesen.ch 🔗

Switzerland's railway wasn't built by a company. It was voted into being. In a 1898 referendum, Swiss citizens approved...
01/09/2026

Switzerland's railway wasn't built by a company. It was voted into being.

In a 1898 referendum, Swiss citizens approved buying back the country's railways for the Confederation, under the slogan "Swiss railways for the Swiss people." SBB officially started running on January 1, 1902.

Over a century later, it's grown into one of Europe's busiest and most densely used rail networks, carrying passengers and roughly 160,000 net tons of freight, powered entirely by renewable energy (mostly hydroelectric) since 2025. It runs on four divisions: passenger markets, passenger operations, infrastructure, and real estate plus a separate freight arm, SBB Cargo. 35,800 people keep it all moving on daily basis.

SBB shows how a public institution, built on a single 19th-century vote, has kept modernising over more than a century, from steam-era origins to a fully renewable-powered network today.

🚡 Switzerland has funiculars unlike anywhere else in the world. Here are five of them. 😮 Stoosbahn It holds a world reco...
31/08/2026

🚡 Switzerland has funiculars unlike anywhere else in the world. Here are five of them.

😮 Stoosbahn
It holds a world record: the steepest funicular on the planet, with a gradient reaching 110%. Its barrel-shaped cabins rotate automatically so passengers stay perfectly level, no matter how steep the incline gets. Opened in 2017, it connects Schwyz to the car-free alpine village of Stoos, in central Switzerland, climbing more than 740 metres through tunnels and over bridges.

🎢 Gelmerbahn
Europe's steepest open-air funicular, with a 106% gradient. Its single open-air carriage climbs straight up the mountainside, more rollercoaster than railway, all the way to a turquoise mountain lake 💙. Built in 1926 for the Gelmer dam construction site, near the Grimsel Pass in the Bernese Oberland, it gains 450 metres of altitude over a horizontal distance of just 900 metres.

🚞 Sierre-Montana-Crans SMC Funicular
The longest open-air funicular in Europe, stretching 4.2 km in a single uninterrupted section. It climbs more than 900 metres from the town of Sierre, in Valais, up to the ski resort of Crans-Montana. An earlier version was already running in 1911, and today it carries skiers and locals alike all year round.

🪜 Niesenbahn
It runs alongside the longest staircase in the world: 11,674 steps, used by maintenance teams and open to the public only under certain conditions. The funicular itself climbs the near-perfect pyramid shape of the Niesen mountain. In operation since 1910, it overlooks Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland and reaches the summit in about thirty minutes.

⏳ Giessbach Funicular
Running since 1879, it is the oldest funicular still in operation in Switzerland. It was also the first in the world to use a single track with a passing loop in the middle, a design later adopted by funiculars around the globe. It climbs roughly a hundred metres from the boat dock on Lake Brienz up towards the famous Giessbach waterfalls 💦.

Switzerland didn't invent the cuckoo clock 🐦 Ask most people where the cuckoo clock comes from, and they'll say Switzer...
28/08/2026

Switzerland didn't invent the cuckoo clock 🐦

Ask most people where the cuckoo clock comes from, and they'll say Switzerland. In fact, the mechanism was invented in Germany's Black Forest in the early 1700s, by clockmaker Franz Ketterer. His bellows-and-whistle system, meant to mimic a rooster, ended up sounding just like a cuckoo instead.

Switzerland's signature version only arrived in 1920, in the lakeside town of Brienz. There, Robert Loetscher, whose family business made chalet-style music boxes, fitted a real clock movement into one, creating the "Swiss chalet" cuckoo clock the world now associates with Switzerland.

Local craftsmen followed with hand-carved details: dancing figures, grazing animals, waterwheels.

Nearly a century later, designers Martino D'Esposito and Alexandre Gaillard founded Swiss Koo near Lausanne (2013), reinventing it in bold, hand-signed, limited-edition colours.

You might know Swiss lakes. But do you know these 6 facts? 🇨🇭💧 💧 Switzerland is home to more than 1,500 lakes. 🌊 Lake Ge...
27/08/2026

You might know Swiss lakes. But do you know these 6 facts? 🇨🇭💧

💧 Switzerland is home to more than 1,500 lakes.

🌊 Lake Geneva, shared by Switzerland and France, is the largest freshwater lake in Central Europe.

🇨🇭 At 218 km², Lake Neuchâtel is the largest lake located entirely within Switzerland.

📍 Wherever you are in Switzerland, you’re never more than 16 km from a lake.

⬇️ At just 193 metres above sea level, Lake Maggiore marks the lowest point in the country.

🏔️ And hundreds of small natural lakes are scattered across Switzerland, most of them in the Alps.

Switzerland without its lakes? Hard to imagine. They shape landscapes, ecosystems and everyday life across the country, from Alpine valleys to major cities.

But they’re much more than beautiful scenery. Lakes store freshwater, provide habitats for countless species and are increasingly affected by pressures such as rising temperatures and changes in water quality.

On , a reminder that these familiar landscapes are also precious ecosystems worth understanding and protecting. 💙

Dogs, the Swiss way. 🐶🇨🇭 For International Dog Day, we are looking at a few surprising facts about dogs in Switzerland....
26/08/2026

Dogs, the Swiss way. 🐶🇨🇭

For International Dog Day, we are looking at a few surprising facts about dogs in Switzerland.

In Switzerland, dogs must be identified with a microchip and registered in the national AMICUS database. This helps identify dogs and trace them in different situations, from a change of owner to an incident or a lost animal.

Owning a dog can also mean paying an annual dog tax, depending on the canton or commune. In Geneva, for example, this tax is calculated using the information registered in AMICUS.



Training rules are also not the same everywhere. Switzerland no longer has a general federal course requirement for all dog owners, but cantons can still apply specific rules, especially for certain categories of dogs.

Switzerland also has its own canine heritage. The Saint Bernard and the Bernese Mountain Dog are among the best-known Swiss breeds, but they are not the only ones. According to the Swiss Cynological Society, nine FCI-recognised dog breeds originate in Switzerland.

And of course, there is ROBIDOG. Invented in Switzerland in 1981, the green dog waste disposal system has become a familiar sight in many towns, parks and walking paths.

23/08/2026

Have you ever asked yourself why everything in Switzerland is closed on Sundays? 🤔😉
Here's why 👇

Address

63, Srimath R. G. Senanayake Mawatha (Gregory's Road)
Colombo
COLOMBO7

Opening Hours

Monday 08:00 - 16:00
Tuesday 08:00 - 16:00
Wednesday 08:00 - 16:00
Thursday 08:00 - 16:00
Friday 08:00 - 12:00

Telephone

+94112695117

Website

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