Bern is the de facto capital of Switzerland, referred to by the Swiss as their "federal city", in German: Bundesstadt, French: ville fédérale, and Italian: città federale. With a population of about 144,000 (as of 2020), Bern is the fifth-most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 36 municipalities, had a population of 406,900 in 2014. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000.

Bern is also the capital of the canton of Bern, the second-most populous of Switzerland's cantons. The official language in Bern is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the most-spoken language is an Alemannic Swiss German dialect, Bernese German. In 1983, the historic old town (in German: Altstadt) in the centre of Bern became a UNESCO World Heritage Site