Editing Confederation (section)

===Switzerland===
{{Further information|Eidgenossenschaft}}
[[Switzerland]], officially known as the ''Swiss Confederation'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.admin.ch/ |title=Startseite |publisher=admin.ch |date=13 February 2011 |access-date=2011-02-19}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bk.admin.ch/dokumentation/02070/index.html?lang=en |title=Federal Chancellery – The Swiss Confederation – a brief guide |publisher=Bk.admin.ch |date=1 March 2010 |access-date=2011-02-19 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130514013106/http://www.bk.admin.ch/dokumentation/02070/index.html?lang=en |archive-date=14 May 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://swissconfederationinstitute.org/|title=The Swiss Confederation Institute|website=The Swiss Confederation Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110123160641/http://www.swissconfederationinstitute.org/|archive-date=2011-01-23|url-status=dead|access-date=2013-07-12}}</ref> is an example of a modern country that traditionally refers to itself as a confederation because the official (and traditional) name of Switzerland in German ([[Languages of Switzerland|the majority language of the Swiss]]) is ''{{lang|de|Schweizerische [[Eidgenossenschaft]]}}'' (literally "Swiss Comradeship by Oath"), an expression which was translated into the [[Latin]] ''{{lang|la|Confoederatio Helvetica}}'' (Helvetic Confederation). It had been a confederacy since its inception in [[1291]] as the [[Old Swiss Confederacy]], which was originally created as an alliance among the valley communities of the central [[Alps]], until it became a federation in 1848 but it retains the name of Confederacy for reasons of historical tradition. The confederacy facilitated management of common interests (such as freedom from external domination especially from the [[Habsburg Empire]], the development of republican institutions in a Europe dominated by monarchies and free trade), and it ensured peace between the different cultural entities of the area.

After the [[Sonderbund War]] of [[1847]], when some of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland attempted to set up a separate union (''{{lang|de|Sonderbund}}'' in German) against the Protestant majority, a vote was held and the majority of the cantons approved the new Federal Constitution which changed the political system to one of a [[federation]].<ref>[http://www.swissworld.org/en/politics/general_information/ch_confoederatio_helvetica/ CH: Confoederatio Helvetica – Switzerland – Information] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330035550/http://www.swissworld.org/en/politics/general_information/ch_confoederatio_helvetica/ |date=30 March 2015 }}. Swissworld.org. Retrieved on 2013-07-12.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.admin.ch/ |title=On the way to becoming a federal state (1815-1848) |publisher=admin.ch |date=27 November 2017 |access-date=2021-01-28}}</ref>