The currently valid coordinates of the control points in Switzerland were resurveyed by swisstopo in the 1990s with a degree of accuracy within the centimetre range, using satellite technology and the Global Positioning System (GPS). We refer to this as national survey 1995 (LV95).

The defined location of Switzerland’s zero point is the old observatory in Bern. This is the point from which the coordinates are calculated in metres, increasing towards the east and north and decreasing towards the west and south. However, the coordinates of this «zero» point are not in fact 0 m / 0 m as the name might imply, but rather E = 2,600,000 m (east) and N = 1,200,000 m (north).

With this definition, coordinates to the south and west of Bern do not have negative figures, and any confusion between east and north values is also ruled out. 

The first official coordinates system was defined in 1903 within the framework of the 1903 national survey (LV03). But surveying methods underwent further development, and thanks to satellite technology and GPS the Swiss national survey was improved in the 1990s. In the 1995 national survey (LV95) the coordinates of the control points were calculated with a degree of accuracy within the centimetre range.

Thus with LV95 the almost hundred-year-old coordinates defined in LV03 were replaced. The most noticeable difference resulting from this change of reference frame was that the coordinates now comprised seven digits instead of six. The value 2,000,000 was added to the coordinates towards the east (E) and 1,000,000 m to the coordinates to the north in order to distinguish them from the designations in the old system. Through the use of seven-digit designations it was now possible to precisely indicate each point in Switzerland.