Cantonal and municipal boundaries
The cantons are responsible for cantonal and municipal boundaries. swisstopo manages a data set of all of these boundaries which is updated annually and issued for free.

It is the cantons that are responsible for the cantonal and municipal boundaries. Any modifications to these boundaries have to be approved by the relevant authorities of the involved canton or municipality.
District boundaries are formed from the respective municipal boundary and are not an autonomous hierarchical level. Some cantons do not have any district boundaries at all.
All of these administrative boundaries lie on real estate boundaries and therefore form an integral part of the cadastral survey. This is where all changes to boundaries are tracked in the «administrative boundaries» information layer – one of eleven information layers in the cadastral survey. These changes are either based on real boundary changes or they result from the improvement of the data basis of the cadastral survey or other cantonal records.
swisstopo manages a data set with all country, cantonal and municipal boundaries. This data set, swissBOUNDARIES3D comprises Switzerland with its 2,222 municipalities (as at 1.1.2018), the Principality of Liechtenstein and exclaves of neighbouring countries. It is updated annually and is based on the records of the cadastral survey and the Federal Statistical Office, (FSO). swisstopo makes this data set available for free.
P.O. Box
3084 Wabern
- Tel.
- +41 58 469 01 11
Relevant authority
Geodesy and Federal Directorate of Cadastral Surveying