Below is a list of towns and cities in Switzerland. Until 2014 municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants were considered to be towns. Since 2014, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) uses a new algorithm to define whether a municipality can be called a town or not; it now also depends on its character. Currently, FSO considers 162 municipalities as towns/cities in Switzerland. Further, some municipalities which would fulfill such a definition nevertheless prefer to understand themselves still as a village, or consequently refer to themselves just as municipalities. The Swiss definition of a town differs from the definition of a municipality.