St. Gallen in the context of "Arbon"

St. Gallen is a constituency (Wahlkreis) in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Wahlkreis (SFOS number 1721) has been established on June 10, 2001 with an area of 157.54 km (60.83 sq mi). The Wahlkreis takes its name from the city of St. Gallen.

The canton of St. Gallen or St Gall (German: Kanton St. Gallen [zaŋkt ˈɡalən] ; Romansh: Chantun Son Gagl; French: Canton de Saint-Gall; Italian: Canton San Gallo) is a canton of Switzerland. Its capital is St. Gallen.

Located in northeastern Switzerland, the canton has an area of 2,026 km (782 sq mi) (5% of Switzerland) and a resident population close to half a million as of 2015 (6% of Switzerland). It was formed in 1803 as a conflation of the city of St. Gallen, the territories of the Abbey of St. Gall and various former subject territories of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

The Abbey of Saint Gall (German: Abtei St. Gallen) is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world.

The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey. The abbey was secularized around 1800, and in 1848 its former church became St. Gallen Cathedral, the seat of the Diocese of Saint Gallen. Since 1983 the abbey precinct has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel (Johannes Oecolampadius), Bern (Berchtold Haller and Niklaus Manuel), St. Gallen,(Joachim Vadian), to cities in southern Germany and via Alsace (Martin Bucer) to France.

Since 1920, the Swiss Reformed Churches have been organized in 26 member churches of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches. In the 2000 Swiss census, 33% of Swiss population were reported as registered members of a Reformed cantonal church. By 2022, this was 22.5%, with 2.7% of the populations belonging to other Protestant denominations.

Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a social class of patrician families, whose members were initially the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 12th and 13th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne's view, was the motive force. In 19th century Central Europe, the term had become synonymous with the upper Bourgeoisie and cannot be interchanged with the medieval patriciate in Central Europe. In the maritime republics of the Italian Peninsula as well as in German-speaking parts of Europe, the patricians were as a matter of fact the ruling body of the medieval town. Particularly in Italy, they became part of the nobility and it became a noble title.

With the establishment of the medieval towns, Italian city-states and maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally defined social class of governing wealthy families. They were found in the Italian city-states and maritime republics, particularly in Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi. They were also found in many of the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire, such as Nuremberg, Ravensburg, Augsburg, Konstanz, Lindau, Bern, Basel, Zürich, St. Gallen and many more.

The federal judiciary of Switzerland consists of four federal courts: the Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne and Lucerne; the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona; the Federal Patent Court in St. Gallen; and the Federal Administrative Court in St. Gallen. These courts are charged with the application of Swiss federal law through the judicial process.

The Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne is established in the Swiss Federal Constitution as the supreme judicial authority of Switzerland. It is the court of appeal for all decisions of the cantonal courts of last instance, and also for most decisions of the three federal courts of first instance.