In my atlas a portion of Holstein in northern Germany is designated as “Schwyz im Holstein” (Switzerland in Holstein). It seems an awfully flat piece of land to be named after the Alpine country. Was there a band of Swiss emigrants who settled there, or is there a different derivation of this place-name?
I’ve always heard it called “Holsteinischer Schweiz.”
It’s a bit of a joke. Schleswig-Holstein, like the rest of Northern Germany, is basically flat, so the one area with a few hills is called the “Holstein Switzerland.”
Schwyz im Holstein seems like a misspelling.
The german word for Switzerland is Schweiz.
Schwyz is one of the cantons (states) in Switzerland (the one from which Switzerland got its name).
In Germany there are many areas designated as “Schweiz”, but they are of course usually at least hilly areas. There is the Sächsische Schweiz (Saxon Schweiz) and the Böhmische Schweiz (Bohemian) that goes into the Czech Rep. Looking at my German atlas I do find a Holsteinische Schweiz, which would seem to be an area with a lot of lakes. In this case they probably named it due to its beautiful natural setting (I couldn’t find a better answer on any of their homepages.)
But scratch, what brought this up anyway?
Arnold Winkelreid is, of course, correct. I misremembered the proper spelling of Schweiz. Thill, nothing particular brought this up. Just a geographical curiosity. I saw a couple other “Switzerlands” in my atlas – presumably the same ones you mention – but couldn’t remember their locations off the top of my head.
Gulp! Now I’m misspelling Winkelried!