#mesto Guide

Lausanne - history

The history of Lausanne goes back to the Roman age when Roman military units built a camp here at the site of a Celtic settlement. As the power of the Roman Empire was deteriorating, infirmness forced the displacement of Lausanne to the place where it’s located now.

In the course of the middle ages the city was governed by the Dukes of Savoy, the Bishop of Lausanne and then by Berne. It was affected by the Reformation and the Calvinist movement in the 16th century.

During the Napoleonic wars, in 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton Vaud and subsequently joined the Swiss Federation.

The city has been traditionally referred to as a tranquil and “peaceful” place, however, in the course of the 1960s and the 1970s a series of predominantly youth demonstrations incited the emergence of the motto 'Lausanne bouge' (Lausanne is getting animated).

Other major mass meetings, for instance, took place to protest against the high cinema prices and so on. One of the seamy aspects of the city is that Lausanne possesses one of the highest AIDS rates in Europe.