CH: The Country Code for Switzerland

The European country abbreviated CH is Switzerland.

Origin of "CH"

CH stands for Confoederatio Helvetica—Latin for "Swiss Confederation." The Latin form was chosen as a neutral compromise among Switzerland's four national languages:

• German: Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft
• French: Confédération suisse
• Italian: Confederazione Svizzera
• Romansh: Confederaziun svizra

Usage Contexts

• Vehicle registration plates (oval CH sticker/plate)
• Internet country code top-level domain: .ch
• ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code: CH
• International organizations: IOC (SUI), FIFA (SUI) use French-derived codes; CH for technical/neutral contexts
• Currency: CHF (Confoederatio Helvetica Franc)

Why Not "SW" or "SZ"?

SW = Sweden (ISO: SE); SZ = Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). CH avoids confusion and honors multilingual neutrality—a quintessentially Swiss solution.

Switzerland: where even the abbreviation requires consensus.