Schaffhausen
TL;DR
Rhine Falls hydropower pioneer now pivoted to medtech and smart mobility
Schaffhausen controls Europe's largest plain waterfall—the Rhine Falls drawing 1.5 million annual visitors—and leveraged this hydroelectric resource to industrialize early. Heinrich Moser's 1851 canal and 1866 hydroelectric plant (Switzerland's first) powered SIG's machinery production and Europe's first aluminum plant (1888, later Alusuisse). Robert Victor Neher invented aluminum foil here. The post-1990s transformation pivoted from heavy industry to medical technology, plastics, packaging, and smart mobility. The canton exemplifies how natural infrastructure advantages (hydropower) can seed industrial ecosystems that then adapt to post-industrial niches.