The Oberland, Liechtenstein's southern half

Hardly anyone visiting Liechtenstein realises they’ve spent the day in the Oberland, yet that’s where nearly everything is. The capital, the museums, both castles you can see from the road and every mountain sit in this southern half of the country. I think it’s worth understanding, because it explains why the north feels so different and why the country has voted in two halves since 1878.

What the Oberland is

The 1921 constitution defines Liechtenstein as a union of two «Landschaften», and the first it names is the «Landschaft Vaduz (Oberland)». It covers the old county of Vaduz, founded in 1342, answerable directly to the emperor from 1396 and joined to the lordship of Schellenberg between 1434 and 1437. The Liechtenstein family bought it in 1712, thirteen years after buying the north, and in 1719 the two became the principality.

Those thirteen years are my favourite part of the story. Between 1699 and 1712 the Unterland already belonged to the Liechtensteins while the Oberland was still owned by the Counts of Hohenems. It was the only time since the 15th century that the two halves had different masters. Every date is laid out in the history of Liechtenstein.

Six municipalities and most of the country

The Oberland brings together six municipalities, Vaduz, Schaan, Triesen, Balzers, Triesenberg and Planken. It spans 125.5 km², about 78% of Liechtenstein, and had 26,263 residents at the end of 2025. On the Rhine plain sit the capital, Vaduz, and Schaan, the most populous municipality. Further south come Triesen, with its old centre among vineyards, and Balzers, at the foot of Gutenberg Castle.

The mountains belong entirely to the Oberland. Triesenberg climbs the slope with its Walser hamlets, and over the ridge it has Steg and Malbun in the Samina valley. Planken, the smallest village in the country, sits on a terrace beneath the Drei Schwestern. And Liechtenstein’s highest point, the Grauspitz at about 2,600 m, lies within Triesen, as does the Lawena valley, which the Historisches Lexikon describes as the only high valley in the country draining into the Rhine valley. Another southern quirk is that Balzers owns the Grafenberg castle ruin even though it stands in Fläsch, across the Swiss border. It’s one of several places where property lines and national borders don’t quite match, along with the alp that Gamprin owns in Austria’s Vorarlberg.

Why is it called the Oberland?

Not because of altitude, as you might think, but because of the Rhine. The Historisches Lexikon explains that the names follow the direction of the river, which flows from south to north, so the south lies upstream, «ober», and the north downstream, «unter». It’s a common way of naming land across the German-speaking world.

What surprises me is how late the names arrived. They don’t appear in Peter Kaiser’s chronicle of 1847, nor in the 1862 constitution. They first turn up, in brackets, in the electoral law of 1878, which created two separate constituencies to settle a political crisis between north and south. That story is told on the Unterland of Liechtenstein.

Where the south stops and the north begins

The boundary between the halves is the Scheidgraben, an old ditch already recorded as the «fridtgraben» in a register of 1617-1619. It crosses the great Riet from east to west between Schaan and Eschen, down to the inland canal. Today you’d barely spot it, but you do notice the separation, because a flat stretch without houses lies between the two settled areas.

A half with its own vote and its own accent

The division is still very much alive. The Oberland elects 15 of the Landtag’s 25 MPs, and the constitution requires each half to have at least two of the government’s five members. You can hear it too. The Oberland says «Stää» for stone where the Unterland says «Stoo», and the speech of Balzers has quirks of its own even within the south. I give more examples on the Liechtenstein dialect.

For visitors, the Oberland is also where you sleep. In 2025 Triesenberg, including Malbun and Steg, logged 51,991 hotel nights and Vaduz 39,461, against 46,484 for the whole Unterland. I’d base myself in Vaduz for the valley and in Malbun if the plan is mountains.