Country comparison: Belgium / Switzerland

This country comparison is a concise, tabular overview of numerous data from our respective country pages for Belgium and Switzerland. There, we provide many explanations and details per country that go far beyond this comparison.

General information

	Belgium	Switzerland
Region:	Western Europe	Western Europe
Area:	30,530 km²	41,290 km²
National language:	Dutch	German
Government form:	Federal parliamentary republic (under constitutional monarchy)	Federal republic
Independent since:	1830 AD	1499 AD
Capital:	Brussels	Bern

Population

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	Belgium	Switzerland
Population:	11,593,000	8,703,000
Inhabitants/km²:	379.7	210.8
Life expectancy males:	Ø 79 years	Ø 81 years
Life expectancy females:	Ø 83 years	Ø 85 years
Average age:	Ø 41.6 years	Ø 42.7 years
Birth rate:	9.90 ‰	9.90 ‰
Death rate:	11.00 ‰	8.80 ‰
Migrationrate:	4.38 ‰	4.52 ‰

Quality of life

Values from 0 (bad) to 100 (very good)
See also: Explanations and country ranking on quality of life

	Belgium	Switzerland
Political stability:	76	91
Civil rights:	88	99
Health:	89	93
Climate:	20	35
Cost of Living:	32	44
Popularity:	40	40

Economy

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	Belgium	Switzerland
Currency:	euro (1 EUR = 100 Cent)	Swiss franc (1 CHF =100 Rappen)
Unemployment rate:	6.3 %	5.1 %
Inflation rate:	2.44 %	0.58 %
Cost of Living: (USA = 100%)	96.97 %	142.40 %
Commercial taxes and contributions:	55.40 %	28.80 %
Average income:	50,490 US$	90,600 US$
Corruption index:	27 (good)	18 (good)

	BEL: total	per 1000 inh.	CHE: total	per 1000 inh.
Gross domestic product:	594,104 M US$	51.25 M US$	800,640 M US$	91.99 M US$
Gross national product:	585,375 M US$	50.49 M US$	788,512 M US$	90.60 M US$
Exported goods:	515,625 M US$	44.48 M US$	571,376 M US$	65.65 M US$
Imported goods:	509,018 M US$	43.91 M US$	480,522 M US$	55.21 M US$

Infrastructure

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	BEL: total	per 1000 inh.	CHE: total	per 1000 inh.
Roadways:	118,414 km	10.21 km	71,557 km	8.22 km
Railways:	3,592 km	0.31 km	3,236 km	0.37 km
Waterways:	2,043 km	0.18 km	1,292 km	0.15 km
Harbours:	201	0.0173	20	0.0023
Passenger airports:	5	0.0004	5	0.0006

Energy balance

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	BEL: total	per 1000 inh.	CHE: total	per 1000 inh.
Energy consumption:	82.16 bn kWh	7.09 m kWh	58.46 bn kWh	6.72 m kWh
Energy production:	79.83 bn kWh	6.89 m kWh	59.01 bn kWh	6.78 m kWh
Energy export:	8.47 bn kWh	730,185.03 kWh	30.17 bn kWh	3.47 m kWh
Energy imports:	14.65 bn kWh	1.26 m kWh	34.10 bn kWh	3.92 m kWh
CO2 emissions:	93.01 m t	8,022.98 t	37.38 m t	4,294.87 t

Telecommunication

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	Belgium	Switzerland
International dialing:	+32	+41
Internet domain:	.be	.ch

	BEL total	BEL per 1000 inh.	CHE total	CHE per 1000 inh.
Landlines:	3,293,420	284	2,956,500	340
Mobile cellulars:	11,740,118	1013	11,060,700	1271
Internet server:	5,192,000	448	5,301,000	609
Internet users:	10,756,947	928	8,317,789	956
Broadband Internet:	4,920,679	424	4,007,000	460

Healthcare system

Details for Belgium and Switzerland

	Belgium	Switzerland
Hospital beds per 1000 inh.:	5.58	4.63
Physicians per 1000 inh.:	3.32	4.24
Diabetes:	4.6 %	5.7 %
Tuberculosis:	0.08 ‰	0.05 ‰
Tuberculosis cure rate:	67.0 %	74.0 %
Smokers:	23.4 %	25.5 %

Climate

We also provide a more detailed climate comparison of both countries.
The data for each country can be found here: Belgium and Switzerland

	Belgium	Switzerland
Daytime temperatures:	14.9 °C	15.3 °C
Nighttime temperatures:	7.3 °C	6.5 °C
Rel. humidity:	82 %	76 %
Rain days:	10.6	9.5
Sunshine hours per day:	4.7	5.3

Native languages

	Belgium	Switzerland
German:	0.7 %	62.5 %
Dutch:	54.2 %	n/a
French:	41.1 %	21.3 %
Italian:	2.1 %	8.3 %
Croatian:	n/a	1.4 %
Albanian:	n/a	1.3 %
Portuguese:	n/a	1.2 %
Spanish:	n/a	1.1 %
Romansh:	n/a	0.5 %
other:	1.9 %	2.4 %

Religions

	Belgium	Switzerland
Christianity:	75.0 %	70.8 %
Nondenominational:	n/a	21.4 %
Islam:	n/a	4.9 %
Jewry:	0.3 %	0.2 %
other:	24.7 %	2.7 %

Data inventory and updates

A country comparison like this can be based on several hundred individual data items from dozens of different sources. All data are based on the most recent data available to us. Most of them refer to the previous year and are updated around March of the following year. If a country has not yet published data for the most recent or penultimate year, we present the most recent official data. Updates are made on an ongoing basis depending on the subject area or source, so there is no single "cutoff date" for this comparison. Sources for almost all data can be found on our respective country pages.

Belgium	Switzerland
All information: Belgium	All information: Switzerland
Select other countries: