Lugano, Canton of Ticino, Switzerland

🇨🇭 Lugano is a town and a municipality in southern Switzerland in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino bordering Italy. It is the ninth largest Swiss city.

The city lies on Lake Lugano, at its largest width, and, together with the adjacent town of Paradiso, occupies the entire bay of Lugano. The territory of the municipality encompasses a much larger region on both sides of the lake, with numerous isolated villages. The region of Lugano is surrounded by the Lugano Prealps, the latter extending on most of the Sottoceneri region, the southernmost part of Ticino and Switzerland. Both western and eastern parts of the municipality share an international border with Italy.

Described as a market town since 984, Lugano was the object of continuous disputes between the Dukes of Como and Milan until it became part of the Old Swiss Confederation in 1513. In 1803, the political municipality of Lugano was created, following the establishment of the canton. Since 1882, Lugano is an important stop on the international Gotthard Railway. The rail brought a decisive contribution to the development of tourism and more generally of the tertiary sector which are, to this day, predominant in the economy of the city.

Economy As of  2007, Lugano had an unemployment rate of 5.59%. As of 2005, there were 77 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 28 businesses involved in this sector. 3,520 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 420 businesses in this sector. 33,601 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 3,877 businesses in this sector. There were 12,191 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 45.9% of the workforce.

In 2000, there were 28,174 workers who commuted into the municipality and 3,994 workers who commuted away. Lugano is the economic centre of the region and draws about 7.1 workers into the municipality for every one leaving. About 12.4% of the workforce coming into Lugano are coming from outside Switzerland, while 1.6% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 15.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 44.6% used a private car. As of 2009, there were 43 hotels in Lugano with a total of 1,584 rooms and 2,889 beds.

The airline Darwin Airline, operating under the brand name Etihad Regional since January 2014, has its head office on the grounds of Lugano Airport in Agno, near Lugano.

Tourist Industry Lugano is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Switzerland. The city is home to a number of historic buildings and museums, whilst the surrounding area has many natural sights.

Both Lake Lugano and the surrounding mountains provide a wide variety of outdoor activities. The area surrounding Lugano is home to over 300 km (190 mi) of mountain biking trails, the largest net of trails in Switzerland.

Heritage sites There are 17 sites in Lugano that are part of the Swiss heritage site of national significance. The city of Lugano, the districts of Barbengo, Brè, Gandria and Biogno, and the sites of Cantine di Gandria and Castagnola are all part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

The heritage sites of national significance include two libraries, the Biblioteca Cantonale and the Biblioteca Salita dei Frati as well as the Swiss National Recording Archives (Fonoteca nazionale svizzera). There were three churches; Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli and the Church of San Rocco.

There were three museums; the Museo Cantonale d'Arte , the Museo cantonale di storia naturale di Lugano [it] and the Villa Ciani complex with the 'Museo civico. The cemetery complex at via Trevano is also one of the sites, as is the Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana (RTSI) Italian-language broadcast facility. The rest of the sites are houses throughout the town. They include the Palazzo civico at piazza della Riforma, the Palazzo e cinema Corso at via Pioda, the Palazzo Riva at via Francesco Soave, the Palazzo Riva at via Massimiliano Magatti, the Palazzo Riva at via Pretorio 7 and Villa Favorita in Castagnola.

Education and research In Lugano about 63.7% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a University of Applied Sciences).

The upper secondary school includes several options, but at the end of the upper secondary program, a student will be prepared to enter a trade or to continue on to a university or college. In Ticino, vocational students may either attend school while working on their internship or apprenticeship (which takes three or four years) or may attend school followed by an internship or apprenticeship (which takes one year as a full-time student or one and a half to two years as a part-time student). There were 492 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 722 who attend part-time.

The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields. There were 89 students in the professional program. As of 2000, there were 3,537 students in Lugano who came from another municipality, while 887 residents attended schools outside the municipality. Lugano is home to 2 libraries. These libraries include; the Biblioteca universitaria di Lugano and the Biblioteca cantonale Lugano. There was a combined total (as of 2008) of 448,811 books or other media in the libraries, and in the same year a total of 51,740 items were loaned out.

The headquarter of the university Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano includes 5 of its 6 faculties, the Academy of Architecture being based in Mendrisio. The main building, built in 1909, was originally the hospital of Lugano and since 1996 it's home of the university. In the next years, several added buildings enriched the headquarter until the other side of the river, in the comune called Viganello. In fact, the area of the older buildings on the west side of the river is called "West Campus" (or "Campus Ovest" in italian), whereas the newest building (active since 2021) on the other side of the river is called "East Campus" (or "Campus Est" in italian) and it houses both the university USI and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland SUPSI.

Some of the universities and colleges in Lugano include: • Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI): This Swiss university, translated as "University of Italian Switzerland", which is organised in 6 faculties: the Faculty of Informatics, Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Theology and the Academy of Architecture (which is based in Mendrisio). • Swiss National Supercomputing Centre: an autonomous unit of ETH Zürich that focuses on high-performance computing. • Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA): a non-profit oriented research institute for artificial intelligence, affiliated with both the Università della Svizzera Italiana and SUPSI. • Franklin University Switzerland: an American and Swiss accredited liberal arts college. • The American School In Switzerland: an international secondary school. • SUPSI: University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland.

Air Lugano is served by Lugano Airport, in the nearby municipality of Agno. Currently, only Silver Air operates to Lugano Airport. While there is limited service to Lugano's airport, Milan's airports are not that far away and provide access to a greater number of worldwide locations. Milan Malpensa Airport is connected to Lugano by a direct hourly train with a travel time of 1:45h from/to Lugano, or about one hour, 80 km by road.

Railways Lugano's railway station is situated on the historically and concurrently important Gotthard railway line, which links northern Switzerland with Ticino and Italy. Since the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, in 2016, and the Ceneri Base Tunnel, in 2020, train connections with cities in Northern Switzerland, such as Zürich, Luzern and Basel, have been improved, with significantly faster services through the base tunnels.

Long-distance trains of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS), together with international trains of Trenitalia, connect Lugano with the cities of northern Switzerland and with Italy. The trains operate under the InterCity and EuroCity brands. Service is provided hourly to Zürich and once every two hours to Basel and Milan. One train per day operates to each of Bologna, Genoa and Venice. All the above trains operate via the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels. Between April and mid October, the tourist oriented Gotthard Panorama Express connects Lugano with Lucerne once a day by train and boat, travelling by train over the historic high-level Gotthard route, and then by boat along the length of Lake Lucerne. Lugano is also served by several lines of regional trains of the Treni Regionali Ticino Lombardia (TILO) network which operate in the canton of Ticino and the north of the Italian region of Lombardy. Line RE80 provides a half-hourly semi-fast service northbound to Locarno and southbound to Mendrisio and Chiasso, with alternate southbound trains continuing to Milan. Line S10 provides a half-hourly all stations service northbound to Bellinzona and Biasca and southbound to Mendrisio and Chiasso, with alternate southbound trains continuing to Como and occasional northbound trains continuing to Airolo. Line S50 provides an hourly service to Milan Malpensa Airport, running coupled to an S10 service between Biasca and Mendrisio. All the above trains use the Ceneri Base Tunnel, but line S90 provides a half-hourly service north to Giubiasco and an hourly service south to Mendrisio serving all the stations over the old high-level Ceneri route.

Additionally, the metre gauge (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in gauge) Lugano-Ponte Tresa Railway (FLP) provides a quarter-hourly service to Agno, Lugano Airport and Ponte Tresa. The service operates as line S60 from its own station adjacent to the main railway station.

Lugano is also served by three funicular railways. The Funicolare Città–Stazione, which has recently been renewed, is a short line connecting Lugano railway station to the lower part of the city centre by the lake, whilst the Funicolare Monte Brè and the Funicolare Monte San Salvatore ascend nearby hills to vantage points. A fourth funicular, the Funicolare degli Angioli, still exists but has not operated since 1986.