I married into a family of language and geography enthusiasts, so when my husband started teaching our then little children and me the names of the twenty-six cantons, I rolled with the flow and invented the license plate game.
Back in 2013 I wrote a blog about my license plate game. At that time it was tough to play since GE is on the far west side of the country with one bordering canton- VD. Nowadays, if you have a second residence elsewhere in Switzerland, you can register one car there; which means we get a lot more VS and JU plates.
Every now and then ZH or ZG plates will slip into our canton on banking business. TI will show up; I assume on their way through the Mt. Blanc tunnel for a scenic trip home. I used a veranda company whose workers came from NE.
Everyone knows AI plates but with just under 16,000 people living in the canton, chances are you’re looking at a rental car.
What are the license plates you have probably never seen in GE? UR, GL and NW. After playing this game for twelve years, I saw my first OW plate this summer on my way to Provence in France.
The tricky part of this game is to learn the French and German names: AG is Argau and Argovie, GR is Graubünden and Grisons, SO (Solothurn or Soleure).
I could go on because I am now a pro at the Swiss cantons but I will stop at one last license plate- SZ. I’ll let you figure that one out.
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Living In Geneva 