The first impulse for the spread of the Reformation in the Swiss confederation originated in the cities. Zurich took the lead, followed by Beme and, later, by Basel and Schaffhausen. The role of these towns as territorial lords facilitated its propagation in the countryside, as well as, chiefly due to Berne's Western designs, its spilling over into the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In all three cities a coalition movement of artisans, evangelically minded priests and individual councillors ensured its ultimate success, even against the will of the acting urban regime, as was the case in Berne and Basel. However, the Reformation message did not prove contagious in all cities of the confederation. It ultimately failed in Lucerne, Fribourg and Solothurn.

It has been estimated that in 1500 the population of Switzerland (in its modern boundaries) amounted to slightly less than 800,000 and to above one million inhabitants in 1600. Although the significance of urbanization for early modern Switzerland should by no means be underestimated, it must be clear that we are looking at cities of a comparatively small size. The most sizeable among them in the sixteenth century were Basel (9,000 – 10,000 inhabitants) and Geneva (approximately 10,000), which in the heyday of Huguenot immigration around 1560 even reached a figure as high as 17,000. Berne had about 5,000 inhabitants, St Gallen 4,500 to 5,500, and Zurich's population ranged between 5,000 and 8,000 persons. The population estimates for sixteenth-century Solothurn, Fribourg and Lucerne range between 2,000 and 4,500 inhabitants.