Geneva, Switzerland

Geneva (French: Genève, German: Genf), Switzerland's second-most populous city and the largest French-speaking city in Switzerland, is one of the world's major centres of international diplomacy, having served as the site of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross since its foundation in 1863. Although the United Nations is now headquartered in New York, the organization still retains a large presence in Geneva at the Palais des Nations and many of its sister/child organizations, such as the World Health and International Labour Organizations. The City of Geneva has only 200,000 inhabitants but 915,000 people live in the metropolitan region.

In 1536, a young man named John Calvin, fleeing the persecution of Protestants in France, spent a night in Geneva. As it turned out, he was to do a lot more there than sleeping. After being expelled from Geneva for nearly three years, Calvin returned triumphantly in 1541 to help elevate the city to the rank of a Protestant Rome. The intellectual influence of the Reformation extended to all realms of Genevan life: politics, economy, and administration.