I was surprised by that high number: 10% of us Swiss live abroad. As Swissinfo.org reports:
Praktisch in jedem Land der Welt leben heute Schweizer. Fast jeder Zehnte mit einem roten Pass lebt im Ausland. Und jährlich werden es mehr.
Didn't find the English article but translated to English says "In almost every country of the world there are Swiss people living. Almost every tenth with a red passport lives abroad. And every year there are more of them".
Also the short facts (a feature I quite like in Swissinfo by the way) are interesting.
- 623'057 Swiss living abroad
- 60% of them in EU countries
- France gets the biggest share: 166'199
- The biggest population outside of the EU: USA with 71'419
- 442'643 people with two passports
- 100'421 older than 65 years
- 475'340 allowed to vote
- 95'325 registered to vote
What makes me sad though is that of the 475'000 people allowed to vote only about 95'000 are registered for it. Shame on you.
What I do not know is if that number includes people like me who live abroad for just a few months. I didn't bother to register for vote (missing two or three votes that way). If the 475'000 number does indeed include all those who only are abroad for a short time, then the 95'000 number does not seem all that bad as before. But still.
Update December 30: I now found the original and official source material in German: Auslandschweizerstatistik 2004. Haven't had a look, yet, but maybe it does answer my question for the original article (about who is included).