History of the villages of the canton of Geneva
All documented localities of the canton of Geneva, in alphabetical order (the canton has no districts). 119 localities.
History of the canton of Geneva ↓
Towns and villages 93
Aïre
On a promontory on the right bank of the Rhône, Aïre has been settled since the Bronze Age. In the Middle Ages the priory of Saint-Jean held most of its land.
GEAire-la-Ville
The mill of Aire-la-Ville has existed since the Middle Ages and is still used to press walnuts and grind oats.
GEAnières
Joined in a single municipality when they became part of Genève in 1816, Anières and Corsier split in 1858 after disagreements over shared expenses.
GEArare
Above Arare stands a fortified house of the 15th and 16th centuries, handed from family to family and listed as a historic monument in 1957.
GEAthenaz
Athenaz appears in 1260 among the villages of the Genevan Champagne where the Count of Genève grants the priory of Saint-Victor seigneurial rights.
GEAvully
Assigned to France in 1601, Avully lived until 1749 under the regime of the Saint-Victor lands: the King of France heard appeals, Genève held the other rights.
GEAvusy
In the heart of the Genevan Champagne, Avusy, Athenaz, Sézegnin and Champlong: land of the priory of Saint-Victor, ceded to Sardinia in 1754 before becoming Genevan in 1816.
GEBardonnex
For five centuries the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem kept a commandery at Compesières. Today it houses a small museum of the Order of Malta.
GEBassy
On the ridge above Lake Geneva, the lords of Anières held their fief and castle at Bassy. In 2024 an archaeological survey still could not locate it.
GEBellerive
To harm the trade of Genève, the Duke of Savoy had a castle built here on the shore of Lake Geneva. It served as a salt store and customs post until 1792.
GEBellevue
With no real village centre before the 19th century, Bellevue became a municipality in 1855, split from agricultural, Catholic Collex-Bossy for political and religious reasons.
GE · TownBernex
On the left bank of the Rhône, the canton's third-largest municipality by area and Genève's fourth wine-growing municipality, united with Onex and Confignon from 1793 to 1850.
GEBourg-de-Four
On the former Gallo-Roman forum, the Bourg-de-Four was Geneva's market square in the Middle Ages. The hospital built there in 1707-1712 became the law courts in 1857.
GECara
The Roman mosaic found in 1963 in this hamlet of Presinge is, with the one found under Geneva cathedral, the best preserved in the canton.
GE · TownCarouge
Designed by the Sardinian monarchy as a rival to Genève, Carouge was laid out on a grid, opened its doors to Protestants and Jews and became a royal town in 1786.
GECartigny
The priors of Saint-Victor held the Châtelard fortified house here, both the castellan's residence and a prison. In 1909 Philippe Monnier described the village in « Mon Village ».
GECéligny
Because Bern refused to cede the Bogis-Bossey corridor, Céligny remained a Genevan enclave in Vaud territory. Richard Burton is buried here.
GEChambésy
Since 1966 Chambésy has been home to the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which hosted the pan-Orthodox conferences from 1971 to 2015.
GEChampel
On 27 October 1553 the Spanish physician Michel Servet, accused of heresy, was burned alive at Champel. In 1903 Genevan Protestants erected an expiatory stele to him.
GEChancy
At Chancy, boundary stone no. 1 marks the western border of Switzerland, fixed in 1816. In the nearby woods Roman tile-makers set up shop in the ruins of a temple.
GEChâtelaine
Voltaire had several of his plays staged here in a wooden hall built in 1761 on French soil, at a time when theatre was banned in Genève.
GE · TownChêne-Bougeries
When the Treaty of Turin of 1754 split Chêne in two, the right bank of the Seymaz stayed Genevan, lost its temple and built itself a new one on an oval plan.
GEChêne-Bourg
An old street village on the road from Genève to Moillesulaz, whose radical craftsmen won separation in 1869 from farming, Catholic Thônex.
GEChèvres
On the Rhône, the City of Genève built the Chèvres plant here, opened in 1896 and then the most powerful in Switzerland. The Verbois reservoir drowned it in 1943.
GEChoulex
The low ground of Choulex remained marshland until the Seymaz was drained in 1919. At Miolan the Butini family kept its estate from the 15th to the 20th century.
GEChoully
At the top of the Mandement slope, Choully castle was built from 1723 to 1725 on the site of a former fortified house.
GECité-Nouvelle
In 1960 Onex sold almost 110'000 m² of land for social housing in slab blocks and towers of nine to fifteen storeys: Cité-Nouvelle is one of the first Genevan suburban estates.
GECointrin
A cemetery from the 1st to 6th centuries, a Savoyard lordship, then in 1920 an airfield: the hamlet of Meyrin has become the district of Genève Airport.
GECollex-Bossy
On the Versoix stand the ruins of La Bâtie-Beauregard, the castle of the lords of Gex, taken by the Genevans in 1589 and destroyed the following year.
GECollonge-Bellerive
Beneath Lake Geneva, off the landing stage, lies the Bellerive lakeshore settlement listed by Unesco. Since 1792 the municipality has united Collonge, Vésenaz and Saint-Maurice.
GECologny
In 1816 Lord Byron stayed at the Villa Diodati and Mary Shelley wrote « Frankenstein » at Cologny, home since 1951 to Martin Bodmer's library.
GEColovrex
On the old road from Genève to Collex, a hamlet whose chapel, held by the abbey of Saint-Claude, is mentioned as early as 1184.
GECompesières
Seat of the Genevois commandery of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem, Compesières was a municipality until 1851. Today it is just a hamlet of Bardonnex.
GECompois
In the 13th century Compois had its own castle, held by the de Compey family: in 1256 Gérold de Compey gave it to his nephew Pierre.
GEConches
The naturalist Horace Bénédict de Saussure was born in Conches on 17 February 1740. Yet the district only got its own school in 1913.
GEConfignon
In 1728 the priest of Confignon gives dinner to the fifteen-year-old Jean-Jacques Rousseau and sends him to Madame de Warens in Annecy.
GECorsier
Saint Francis de Sales was its parish priest from 1595 to 1601, and its Corsier-Port lakeshore settlement is the only site on Lake Geneva where every prehistoric period is represented.
GECorsinge
A Savoyard enclave in the Genevan mandement of Jussy, Corsinge had three Genevan houses: in 1666 a viaticum brought by a Savoyard priest set off the Corsinge affair (1666-1668).
GE · Lost villageCusy et Villars
Around 1100 Hermance was just a castrum of fishermen's huts within the parish of Villars. The founding of the borough in 1247 brought the decline of Villars and neighbouring Cusy.
GEDardagny
In 1655 Daniel Favre joined the two medieval fortified houses that make up the castle with a gallery. The wine-growing village received the Wakker Prize in 1978.
GEEpeisses
In 1220 the Count of Genève allowed the prior of Saint-Victor to build a castle here and to station a guard of twenty families, exempt from all jurisdiction.
GE · Lost villageFaubourgs de Saint-Léger et Saint-Victor
To deny the duke of Savoy a foothold in case of siege, Genève razed its suburbs of Saint-Victor and Saint-Léger, outside its walls, from 1531 onwards.
GE · TownGenève
A bishop's city turned city of the Reformation, which drove back the Savoyard Escalade in 1602. The present municipality was formed in 1931 by merging with Plainpalais, Les Eaux-Vives and Le Petit-Saconnex.
GEGenthod
A fief of the bishops of Genève enclosed in the Pays de Gex after the Bernese occupation, Genthod became a country retreat for wealthy Genevans from the 18th century.
GEGrand-Lancy
In 1873, at the height of the Kulturkampf, the Roman Catholics of Grand-Lancy lost their Trinity church, built in 1731-1732, to the Christian Catholics.
GEGrange-Falquet
The « Quercus » leper house stood here, mentioned from 1270 and probably the origin of the hamlet of Chêne. The present name recalls the barns of the Falquet family.
GEGy
Small rural municipality on the left bank, on the border with Haute-Savoie, former land of the priory of Saint-Victor, long a hamlet of Jussy before becoming a municipality in 1850.
GE · TownHermance
Around 1100 Hermance was merely a castrum protecting a few fishermen's huts. In 1247 Aymon II de Faucigny had a castle and a fortified market town built there on the shore of the Léman.
GEJussy
The bishop's castle at Jussy became in 1534 the main centre of resistance of the bishop and the Duke of Savoy against Genève. It was burned in 1536.
GELa Grande et La Petite Coudre
Because Bern kept the Bossey corridor in 1726, the estates of La Grande and La Petite Coudre, about 60 hectares, form a second enclave of Céligny on Vaud soil.
GELa Plaine
In 1797 the « Plan du Rhône » had only four houses. The 1858 station and the 1860 chemical plant, which would employ up to 450 people, turned it into an industrial village.
GELaconnex
A village ceded to the priory of Saint-Victor in 1225, which adopted the Reformation in 1536, became Catholic again under the Kingdom of Sardinia, and joined Genève in 1816.
GE · TownLancy
Neolithic remains at La Praille, a Savoyard municipality joined to Genève in 1816, a town since 1963: Lancy brings together Grand-Lancy and Petit-Lancy.
GELandecy
Once land of the priory of Saint-Victor, Landecy became Sardinian and Catholic under the Treaty of Turin of 1754, then Genevan in 1816. A Roman villa has been uncovered there.
GELe Château
Around the castle of the bishops of Genève, a fortified borough with a circular plan, burned in 1536 and later razed. Today it is a hamlet of Jussy.
GE · TownLe Grand-Saconnex
Nine church buildings have succeeded one another on the site of Saint-Hippolyte since around the 5th century. A village of the Pays de Gex, Le Grand-Saconnex has only been Swiss since 1815.
GELe Lignon
Satellite housing estate in the municipality of Vernier, built from 1963 to 1971 above a bend of the Rhône around a residential block almost a kilometre long.
GELe Petit-Saconnex
Former municipality on the right bank, from Les Pâquis to Sécheron and La Servette, where the League of Nations had its palace built. It joined Genève on 10 July 1931.
GELes Acacias
Long given over to market gardening and livestock, Les Acacias became industrial in the 20th century, before the Praille-Acacias-Vernets project began turning it into a mixed district.
GELes Avanchets
A tree nursery in 1899, seven prefabricated slab blocks from 1970 to 1977: Avanchet-Parc, in Vernier, is the second largest housing estate in Genève.
GELes Eaux-Vives
Its springs supplied Genève with drinking water. A municipality in its own right from 1800, Les Eaux-Vives was merged into the city on 10 July 1931 despite the opposition of its voters.
GELully
Village in the municipality of Bernex on the Aire, whose church is mentioned in 1145 and which housed a Benedictine priory in the Middle Ages.
GEMeinier
In the marshes of the Seymaz, three castles rose at Meinier in the Middle Ages, Compois, Corsinge and Rouelbeau. The municipality remained Savoyard until 1816.
GE · TownMeyrin
CERN settled here in 1954 and Switzerland's first satellite town went up in 1961: in the 20th century the farming village of Meyrin became a town.
GEMoillesulaz
The Genevan tram crossed the border here until 1958. Since 2019 it has crossed it again, from this street village in Thônex to Annemasse.
GE · TownOnex
A farming village of a few hundred inhabitants until the mid-20th century, Onex became a town with the Cité-Nouvelle, built from 1960.
GEPâquis
The Pâquis were pastures outside the walls of Genève, which Duke Charles III of Savoy gave in 1508 to the plague hospital of Plainpalais.
GEPeney
In 1534 Peney's episcopal castle sheltered the supporters of the bishop and the Duke of Savoy, thereafter called Peneysans. Taken by the Protestants, it was demolished in 1536.
GEPerly-Certoux
The Treaty of Turin of 1816 gave Perly and Certoux to Genève, but returned to Sardinia Saint-Julien, on which the two villages had until then depended.
GEPetit-Lancy
At Petit-Lancy, facing Grand-Lancy across the Aire valley, the Genève savings bank completed a workers' garden city in 1899.
GEPinchat
On 22 July 1589, on this plateau above the Arve, 600 Genevans reportedly put to flight the Duke of Savoy's men-at-arms, who outnumbered them ten to one.
GEPlainpalais
Formed from the suburbs of Genève between the Rhône and the Arve, the municipality of Plainpalais was created in 1798, hosted the Swiss National Exhibition of 1896 and merged with Genève on 10 July 1931.
GE · TownPlan-les-Ouates
Count Amadeus II of Geneva had the castle of Saconnex d'Arve built here in 1299-1301. Long part of Compesières, the municipality has been independent since 1851.
GEPoussy
Centre of the parish of Vernier in the Middle Ages, Poussy had its own castle: built by the lords of Verny from 1410, demolished in 1590, rebuilt in 1680.
GEPregny-Chambésy
Voltaire had the Château de Tournay remodelled here in 1758, Baron de Rothschild built his own château, and the ICRC moved into the former Hotel Carlton in 1946.
GEPresinge
United with Puplinge in 1816, Presinge split from it in 1851 because of discord between the two villages. Still rural, it has yielded a Roman villa with a mosaic at Cara.
GEPuplinge
Rural until the late 1960s, Puplinge changed abruptly when the canton allowed HLM-type housing there, then chose less dense housing in 1977.
GERussin
Long disputed between the Republic of Genève and the lords of the Pays de Gex, Russin was only ceded to Genève in 1749, by the Treaty of Paris.
GESaconnex d'Arve
In 1299-1301 Count Amédée II of Genève built a castle here with four round towers. Genève ordered it dismantled in 1590, but one tower still stands.
GESaint-Gervais
Beneath the temple of Saint-Gervais in Genève, excavations revealed Neolithic occupation, a Gallo-Roman sanctuary and a 5th-century mausoleum, the origin of the church mentioned from 926.
GESatigny
Born around a priory linked to the Lyon abbey of Ainay, Satigny has the largest vineyard area in Switzerland in the early 21st century.
GESézegnin
According to tradition, Sézegnin sent three or four men to the Escalade of 1602, who arrived after the fighting. Beneath the village lay a cemetery of at least 1'000 graves.
GESierne
On a promontory above the Arve, Sierne was a parish in the Middle Ages, then a Genevan enclave in Savoyard territory until 1754, among manor houses and farms.
GESoral
Southernmost municipality of the canton of Genève, whose Pierre de Justice, an erratic boulder carved with a cross in the 14th century, was moved away in 1995 and brought back in 2009.
GE · TownThônex
Joined to Chêne-Bourg by the French annexation of 1792, Thônex split off in 1869, in the middle of the Kulturkampf, to become a municipality of its own on the border.
GETroinex
Discovered at Troinex in 1819, the Pierre-aux-Dames, a menhir with four carved figures, left the village in 1872 for the Parc des Bastions.
GEVandœuvres
Built against a Gallo-Roman villa, a 5th-century funerary chapel dedicated to Saint James: the oldest known Christian place of worship in the Genevan countryside.
GE · TownVernier
A former parish of the Pays de Gex ceded by France to Genève in 1815, Vernier is home to the Chèvres plant, the first run-of-river plant in Europe, and to the Lignon and Avanchet estates.
GE · TownVersoix
A fortified borough of Peter II of Savoy razed by the Genevans in 1589, then the site of Choiseul's port town in the 18th century, Versoix became part of Genève in 1816.
GEVésenaz
In 1336 Count Amadeus III of Genève ceded his rights over Vésenaz to the Cistercian nuns of Bellerive. Agricultural until the early 20th century, the village is now fully urbanised.
GEVessy
On the Arve, an 1867 pumping station once threatened with demolition and now open to the public, the clay of the tile works and a bridge designed by Robert Maillart.
GE · TownVeyrier
Found in 1833 near Veyrier, on the neighbouring French soil, a Magdalenian site revealed reindeer hunters who sheltered under boulders around 10'000 BC.
GE · Lost villageVuillonnex
Lost locality in the municipality of Bernex, seat of a deanery of the diocese of Genève around its church of Saint-Mathieu, destroyed in the 17th century.
Sites 26
Barrage de Verbois
Rhône dam built during the Second World War and inaugurated in 1944 in the presence of General Guisan. It supplies about 15% of the electricity used in the canton.
GE · SiteBelle-Idée
Hospital site in the municipality of Thônex, opened in 1900 as the Bel-Air psychiatric institution and now part of the Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève.
GE · SiteCERN
It was at CERN, in Meyrin, that Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau invented the web in 1989-1990.
GE · SiteChapelle Saint-Jacques
5th-century funerary chapel built against a Gallo-Roman villa: the oldest known Christian place of worship in the Genevan countryside.
GE · SiteChâteau de Dardagny
Former seigneurial residence of the municipality of Dardagny, formed in the 17th century by joining two fortified houses, now the town hall and school.
GE · SiteChâteau de la Bâtie-Meillé
Site of a vanished castle in the municipality of Lancy, built in 1318-1320 on the Lancy plateau above the confluence of the Arve and the Rhône, in today's Bois de la Bâtie.
GE · SiteChâteau de Penthes
Built in the 1750s and 1760s in place of a fortified house on Pregny's border, the Penthes mansion housed the Museum of the Swiss Abroad until 2021.
GE · SiteChâteau de Tournay
Voltaire held Tournay for life from 1758, with the title of count. He set up a theatre there, which brought him into conflict with the Genevan authorities.
GE · SiteChâteau des Bois
A refugee from Lucca, François Turrettini, formed this Satigny estate in the early 17th century. His family held the seigneury of Turrettin here until 1794.
GE · SiteChâteau Rothschild
Louis XVI-style château in the municipality of Pregny-Chambésy, built in 1858-1860 for Baron Adolphe de Rothschild in the middle of a large park with greenhouses and stables.
GE · SiteCommanderie de Compesières
From 1270 to 1792 Compesières was the seat of the Genevois commandery of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem. Since 1973 the fortified house has housed the Museum of the Order of Malta.
GE · SiteCorsier-Port
The only site on Lake Geneva where all four main phases of lakeshore occupation are attested, from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. A Unesco World Heritage site since 2011.
GE · SiteFort d'Arve
A star-shaped fort built by Genève in 1589 to defend the bridge over the Arve, dismantled in 1596 and demolished so completely that no remains of it have been identified.
GE · SiteGarengo
The pianist Ernest Schelling bought Garengo in 1910 and hosted many figures from the world of music there.
GE · SiteLa Vieille-Bâtie
Ruins of the Bâtie-Beauregard, a castle of the lords of Gex that defended the north of their territory, taken by the Genevans in 1589 and demolished in 1590.
GE · SiteLes Cheneviers
The Grand Council voted credits as early as 1898, but Geneva's waste incineration plant at Les Cheneviers, on the Rhône, only opened in 1966.
GE · SiteMoulin de Vert
Former meander of the Rhône in the municipality of Cartigny, named after vanished mills and a nature reserve since 1970.
GE · SitePierre-aux-Dames
A Neolithic menhir weighing more than three tonnes, the Pierre-aux-Dames of Troinex bears four figures carved in the Roman period. It is kept at the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Genève.
GE · SitePort-Choiseul
Harbour of the municipality of Versoix, born from the unfinished Versoix-la-Ville project of Choiseul's circle (1766-1770), now a marina.
GE · SitePrieuré de Saint-Jean
Abandoned at the Reformation, the monastery of Saint-Jean outside the walls was used to strengthen Geneva's ramparts. Its remains, found in 1966, have been open to visitors since 1973.
GE · SiteRuines de Rouelbeau
Ruins of a 14th-century castle built in the middle of the Seymaz marshes, at Meinier. In 1921 it became the first site protected by the canton of Genève.
GE · SiteStation de Bellerive I
Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlement submerged in Lake Geneva off the Bellerive landing stage, in the municipality of Collonge-Bellerive, a Unesco World Heritage site since 2011.
GE · SiteTuilerie romaine de Fargout
In the late 2nd or early 3rd century tile makers set up in the ruins of a Gallo-Roman temple in the Bois de Fargout. Their kilns fired thousands of tiles for at least a century.
GE · SiteVersoix-Bourg
Off Versoix, down to almost five metres under water, at least 4'500 piles of a Bronze Age village can still be seen.
GE · SiteVilla Diodati
In 1816 Lord Byron stayed at the Villa Diodati in Cologny, often joined by his neighbours Percy and Mary Shelley. It was in Cologny that Mary Shelley wrote « Frankenstein ».
GE · SiteVilla romaine En Saules
Near the gate of this Gallo-Roman estate in Bernex, an inscription reading « DIV FVLG C » is said to mark the ritual burial of a lightning bolt.
History of the canton of Geneva
From prehistory to the Roman town
The first human traces are hunters' camps at Veyrier, around 13'000 BC. The lake village of Corsier-Port is dated to 3856 BC.
The territory was home to the Allobroges and the Helvetii. In 58 BC Caesar came to cut the bridge over the Rhône. Geneva was first a vicus dependent on Vienne, became the main town of a civitas probably in the last third of the 3rd century, and the seat of a bishop at the end of the 4th century.
A city of bishops and fairs
In 443 Geneva became the first capital of the Burgundians. It then passed to the Franks and joined the second kingdom of Burgundy in 888. From the 11th century the counts of Geneva, the bishop and secular lords competed for power.
The town received a charter of liberties in 1387. Its fairs made it a trading and financial centre, until measures taken by the king of France hit them in 1462. In 1526 Geneva concluded a combourgeoisie treaty with Bern and Fribourg.
The Protestant Rome
On 21 May 1536 the General Council decided to live according to the Gospel. John Calvin, who passed through the city that year, settled there for good in 1541, when the ecclesiastical ordinances were adopted. The Academy was founded in 1559.
In December 1602 the surprise attack of the Duke of Savoy, the Escalade, failed. The Treaty of Saint-Julien recognised Geneva's independence in 1603. After a failed attempt in 1782, the Genevan revolution succeeded in December 1792.
Swiss canton and international city
Occupied by French troops on 15 April 1798, Geneva became the main town of the département of Léman in August. Swiss troops landed at Port-Noir on 1 June 1814, and on 12 September 1814 the Diet voted to admit Geneva to the Confederation. The «communes réunies» were added in 1815 and 1816. On 22 August 1864 the Geneva Convention was signed.
In November 1920 the first assembly of the League of Nations met in Geneva, and the Palais des Nations later became the European seat of the UN. The canton grew from 64'146 inhabitants in 1850 to 413'673 in 2000 and about 537'000 at the end of 2025, in 45 communes.