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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 3356165, member: 57463&quot;]You got your answer. But just to fill in the blanks. The official name of the country is CONFOEDERATIO HELVETICA (in Latin). See the Wikipedia article about Switzerland and then the Wikipedia article and map about the Helvetii tribe.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the late medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Basically, they adopted the name HELVETICA to be cool. The Belgians did the same thing. Belgium was never a nation in any sense until it was carved out of Holland and given to a French royal as a consolation prize for not being made the king of France following the Paris street riots of 1831.&nbsp; Anyway, the Swiss were always called &quot;Swiss&quot; (Suessiones) again, like Helvetii, a tribe known to Julius Caesar, but in his day living in what is now Belgium. (A long time ago, in a German class, we read a satyrical essay about how proud Germans are of the histories of their lands which are named for the footsore vagabonds who settled there.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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