Switzerland is a neutral nation but has more nuclear bunkers than any country in the world

A tunnel leading from the entrance of the Sonnenberg nuclear bunker in Lucerne, Switzerland, leads to a complex deep underground. The bunker is the world's largest underground nuclear bunker, constructed to house 20,000 people. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption LUCERNE, Switzerland — From the outside, the Sonnenberg nuclear bunker looks innocent enough: its entrance is in the middle of a children's playground. But past the seesaws and swing sets, carved into a hill, is a thick blast-proof door that, when opened, exposes a narrow, well-lit tunnel that gently descends as far as the eye can see. Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption If a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were to happen, Swiss officials reasoned at the time, Switzerland — an historically neutral nation — would likely not suffer a direct hit.

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Scoop News DeskSwitzerland · Published Saturday, August 8, 2026 at 11:01 AM UTCUpdated Saturday, August 8, 2026 at 11:34 AM UTC

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Sonnenberg Bunker guide Zora Schelbert walks slowly down the tunnel toward the main structure of the bunker, built in the 1970s, during the Cold War, to house 20,000 people in the event of a nuclear war. "Back then, 20,000 people constituted a third of our city's inhabitants," says Schelbert. "So every third person in the city of Lucerne was once supposed to be sheltered in this bunker." The entrance to the nuclear bunker underneath the University of Bern's History Department building.