Explore the History of Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein, a principality of about 160 square kilometres on the east bank of the Alpine Rhine between Switzerland and Austria, was first settled by Neolithic farmers on the Eschnerberg about 5000 BCE. Rhaetian peoples lived in the valley when Rome conquered the Alps in 15 BCE, and for four centuries it lay in the province of Raetia, on the road from Italy to Bregenz.

After Rome the valley belonged to Churraetia, the bishop-state of Chur, then to the Franks and the Duchy of Swabia, and slowly changed from Romansh to German. Under the counts of Werdenberg the County of Vaduz was created in 1342, Walser settlers came to Triesenberg, and the lords of Brandis held Vaduz together with the Lordship of Schellenberg.

The counts of Sulz and Hohenems kept the land Catholic through the Reformation, the Thirty Years' War and the witch trials, until debt forced its sale. The princes of Liechtenstein, an Austrian noble house in search of a seat in the Imperial Diet, bought Schellenberg in 1699 and Vaduz in 1712, and in 1719 Emperor Charles VI united them as the Imperial Principality of Liechtenstein. Napoleon made it sovereign in 1806.

Ruled from Vienna and tied to Austria by a customs treaty, the principality disbanded its army in 1868 and stayed neutral in both world wars. After 1918 it turned to Switzerland, with the constitution of 1921, the Swiss franc and a customs union, and under Franz Joseph II, the first prince to live in Vaduz, it grew from a poor farming country into one of the richest states in the world. Explore the eleven ages below through selected events from the timeline.