City & Region

2Particle physics in Geneva: CERN

CERN, Europe’s laboratory for particle physics, has two main sites, in Switzerland and in France, near the Franco-Swiss border next to Geneva. Its visitor centre, Science Gateway, opened to the public in October 2023. The laboratory’s largest machine, the Large Hadron Collider, is a 27-kilometre ring that runs underground on both sides of the border. More in Science.

3Astronomy in Geneva: a planet around a sun-like star

In 1995 Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced 51 Pegasi b, the first planet found orbiting a star like the Sun; planets around a pulsar had been reported in 1992. The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics recognised the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. More in Discoveries.

4Standards in Geneva: ISO, IEC and ITU

Three of the organisations that write the world’s technical standards have their headquarters in Geneva: ISO since 1947, and IEC and ITU since 1948. More in Science and in the article Who writes the world’s technical standards?

5A canton of water

The canton calls itself “a canton of water”. Its part of Lake Geneva is only about 6 % of the lake’s surface, yet the lake, its beaches and its rivers shape the landscape. In 2025 the canton received the Wetland City label of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

The city’s symbol, the Jet d’eau, began as a piece of engineering. In 1886 an outlet was built at the Coulouvrenière pumping station to release excess pressure from the city’s pressurised water network, producing a vertical jet. In 1891 the city moved the jet to the harbour, at the end of the Eaux-Vives jetty. Today it rises about 140 metres, with water leaving the nozzle at about 200 km/h.

6A city of parks and plants

Geneva is known as the “city of parks”, and its interest in plants is old: the city traces its botanical tradition back more than 300 years. In 1817 the authorities created a permanent botanical garden under Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle; today’s Conservatory and Botanical Garden holds a herbarium of more than six million specimens.

Every spring the city watches one tree. The day the first leaf unfolds on the official chestnut tree of the Treille is recorded and used to announce spring; the official series of dates goes back to 1818. More in Discoveries.

7International Geneva in the city

International Geneva is part of the cityscape. The Palais des Nations stands in the Ariana Park, which Gustave Revilliod left to the City of Geneva in 1890, and the building was begun in 1929 for the League of Nations. How the organisations, missions and NGOs work together is explained in Diplomacy.

8Geneva on the Atlas

Geneva lies on two routes of the TheScience.fm Atlas: Big Machines, which links large research machines for particles, photons and plasma, and Swiss Model, which shows how Switzerland organises research.

• Big Machines via Geneva

  Large research machines for particles, photons and plasma.

  Stops: Grenoble.science → Geneva.science → Lausanne.science → Villigen.science → Frascati.science

• Space

  Space agencies, mission centres and the people who build spacecraft.

  Stops: Pasadena.science → Noordwijk.science → Bonn.science → Frascati.science

• Concept Cities

  Cities tied to ideas about how science is judged, funded and measured. Frascati gave its name to the rules for counting R&D.

  Stops: Sevres.science → Lyon.science → Bonn.science → Bologna.science → Frascati.science

• Swiss Model via Geneva

  How Switzerland organises research, from CERN's host city to its federal institutes.

  Stops: Geneva.science → Lausanne.science → Villigen.science → Zuerich.science

All hubs