The New International Encyclopædia/Sion

SION, sē̇′ôn′ (Ger. Sitten). The capital of the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, situated on the Sionne, which flows through the town in an artificial channel, not far from its junction with the Rhone and 17 miles east of Saint-Maurice (Map: Switzerland, B 2). It is a little town of remarkable picturesqueness, with the ruins of the thirteenth-century Castle of Tourbillon on the north and the Castle of Valeria, the former residence of the canons, on the south. The town proper contains the fifteenth-century cathedral, the thirteenth-century Church of Saint Catharine, and the Gothic town hall. Population, in 1900, 6095.