SWINFORD REGIS, or KING'S SWINFORD, a village and parish of England, Staffordshire, on the Dudley and Stourbridge and Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canals, 3 miles W.S.W. of Dudley. The chief buildings are an elegant modern parish church, a chapel of ease, places of worship of Independents, Baptists, Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists. The parish occupies an extensive area, in a district rich in iron and coal, and contains many iron-works, collieries, potteries, brick and tile works, &c., with a population of 27,301.
Boundaries SWITZERLAND (La Suisse, Schweiz, Svizzera), the most mountainous country in Europe, lies between 45. 48. and 47. 49. N. Lat., and 5. 55. and 10. 30. E. Long., having France on the W. between Basle on the Rhine and Geneva on the Rhone, the boundary line being formed by one of the ridges of the Jura Mountains, and by the River Doubs, an affluent of the Rhone. On the S. are Savoy, Piedmont, and Lombardy, from which it is separated by the Lake of Geneva, and high ranges of the Alps. To the E. are the principality of Liechtenstein, the Vorarlberg, and the Tyrol. Canton Ticino and some small portions of the Grisons are on the south side of the main chain of the Alps. On the N. lie Württemberg, Lake Constance, and Baden. The town of Constance, with a limited tract about it on the south of the lake, belongs to Baden, while the Canton of Schaffhausen, and a small portion of that of Zurich, lie to the north of the Rhine. The greatest length of the country is from E. to W., in Lat. 46. 30., where it is 200 miles in extent; and its greatest breadth,—about the 9th parallel of E. Long.—is 135 miles. Between Switzerland and Sardinia the boundary line is strongly defined, except towards the west, where the Canton of Geneva is partially surrounded by Savoy, Chablais, and Faucigny, lately ceded by Sardinia to France. Towards the eastern extremity of the Lake of Geneva, where a high range of the Alps terminates on the banks of the lake near St. Gingolph, the line runs southward along this range until it reaches the mountain-knot of Mont Blanc. Thence it runs eastward along the higher portion of the Pennine Alps to Mont Rosa, where it turns to the N.E. along the Lepontine Alps to the great mountain-mass enveloping the Pass of St. Gothard. From this point it trends southward, and afterwards S.E. to the Lago Maggiore. From this lake the line passes southward to the western arm of the Lake of Lugano, the central portion of which lake belongs to Switzerland, whilst the south-western and north-eastern extremities belong to Lombardy. A
tract of land, extending several miles to the south of the lake, is also included in Switzerland. About 4 miles to the east of the town of Lugano commences a mountain-range, which, passing to the north, separates the valley of St. Giacomo, belonging to Lombardy, from that of Misocco, which belongs to Switzerland. This range meets the principal chain of the Rhaetian Alps at the Pass of the Splügen. After proceeding a few miles only along this chain, the line extends to the east and south along a lateral range, crosses the valley of Bregaglia a few miles above Chiavenna, and meets the Bernina range, forming the southernmost of the three chains of the Rhaetian Alps. The valleys of Poschiavo and Münster, on the southern side of the range, belong, however, to Switzerland; while that of Livigno forms a portion of Lombardy, so that the line here does not follow the water-parting. From the southern extremity of the valley of Münster, bordering on the Tyrol, the line passes nearly due north, and, crossing the valley of the Inn, meets the central chain of the Rhaetian Alps. Passing S.W. along this, it meets the lateral chain called the Rhäticon, which runs N.W. between the Prättigau, belonging to Switzerland, and the Montafoner valley, which belongs to Austria. The mountains of the Rhäticon terminate on the Rhine to the north of Meyenfeld. Up to the point where it enters the Lake of Constance, the Rhine forms the boundary between Austria and Switzerland. The Lake of Constance separates Switzerland from Bavaria and Württemberg, the harbour of Lindau forming the chief point of communication with the former, and that of Friedrichshafen with the latter kingdom. The entire length of boundary is 1040 miles, composed as follows,—602 miles of mountains, 235 of plains, and 203 of water.
The confederation of Switzerland at present consists of political twenty-two sovereign states or cantons, the areas of which, divisions, with number of inhabitants, and other statistical data, are given in the following table:—