Liechtenstein

The principality exists because the Princely House of Liechtenstein, wealthy landowners in Austria and Bohemia, wanted a seat in the Holy Roman Empire's assembly — which required territory held directly from the emperor. They bought the lordships of Schellenberg (1699) and Vaduz (1712), and in 1719 the emperor combined them into the Principality of Liechtenstein, named for the family. The princes did not actually visit for well over a century.

Liechtenstein survived the Napoleonic upheavals and joined the German Confederation. After the First World War it shifted its alignment from a collapsing Austria to Switzerland, adopting the Swiss franc, a customs union, and Swiss diplomatic representation abroad; the two countries have an open border and deep everyday integration. It stayed neutral through both world wars.

It remains a constitutional monarchy in which the prince retains real power: a 2003 referendum gave Prince Hans-Adam II expanded rights to veto laws and dismiss the government, and day-to-day duties passed to his son, Hereditary Prince Alois, in 2004. Women gained the vote only in 1984. The economy, once agricultural, industrialised in the twentieth century and added a large financial-services sector.

Liechtenstein's culture is Alemannic and Alpine, closely tied to eastern Switzerland and the Austrian Vorarlberg, and strongly Roman Catholic by heritage. The local dialect is a marker of identity, standardised in writing only recently, and the national day on 15 August — when the reigning prince invites the whole country to a reception in the castle grounds — is the year's big civic occasion.

The Princely Family is central to national life, both symbolically and as one of Europe's great art collectors; part of the collection is shown in the family's palaces in Vienna. Village brass bands, marksmen's clubs, hiking associations, and Alpine farming traditions structure community life, and the country punches above its weight in the giant slalom, having produced Olympic and World Cup ski medallists.

For all its wealth and its low-tax, letterbox-company reputation, everyday Liechtenstein feels like a quiet cluster of Rhine-valley and mountain villages, where a large share of the workforce commutes in each day from Switzerland and Austria.

The roughly 40,000 residents are spread across eleven municipalities in a strip about 25 kilometres long, from Ruggell in the north to Balzers in the south, with Vaduz — the capital, and not the largest town (that is Schaan) — in the middle. Nearly half the population holds a foreign passport, and citizenship is hard to obtain.

The economy is astonishingly industrial for the country's size: precision engineering and manufacturing firms such as Hilti, Hoval, and Ivoclar are global players, and there are more registered jobs than residents. Alongside industry sits a private-banking, fund, and holding-company sector that was reformed after 2008–09 under international pressure. GDP per head is among the highest in the world.

Daily life is comfortable, orderly, and low-drama: the commute, the local bus, the sports club, and weekends in the mountains or over the border in Switzerland.

Liechtenstein's cooking is the hearty Alemannic and Alpine fare of the region. Käsknöpfle, small flour dumplings baked with mountain cheese and topped with fried onions and served with apple sauce, is the closest thing to a national dish. Ribel, a fried maize-semolina dish eaten with coffee or apple compote, is a traditional breakfast.

Rösti, sausages, Alpine cheeses, cured meats, and Torkarebl (a corn dish) round out the everyday table, and the influence of Swiss and Austrian cooking — fondue, Wiener Schnitzel, strudel — is strong. The Prince's own vineyard, the Hofkellerei, and other small growers on the valley slopes make Pinot Noir and white wines.

Coffee and cake, and beer or a glass of the local wine, are the social staples.

Vaduz, the capital, has a compact pedestrian centre — the "Städtle" — with the Liechtenstein National Museum, the Kunstmuseum with the Hilti Art Foundation, the Postage Stamp Museum (philately was long a real source of revenue), the cathedral, and the government building, all beneath Vaduz Castle on its wooded spur. The castle is the prince's home and closed to visitors, but the walk up gives the classic view.

Above Balzers stands the medieval Gutenberg Castle, open in summer. Malbun, a small ski resort in a high side valley, and neighbouring Steg, with cross-country trails, are the winter draws, and in summer the Fürstensteig — a cabled cliff-edge path high above the Rhine valley — is the country's signature hike. The waymarked Liechtenstein Trail links all eleven municipalities over about 75 kilometres.

Many visitors simply pass through for an hour or a day, stamping a souvenir passport and photographing the castle, but the mountains and the quiet villages reward anyone who stays.