'A full-time job': How a self-proclaimed Swiss king's 'empire' is riling local authorities
Jonas Lauwiner was widely dismissed as an eccentric when he held a coronation and crowned himself king of Switzerland in 2019. Since then, he has used a loophole in Swiss law to acquire a 117,000-square-metre “land empire”, but local authorities are keen to stop him in his tracks.
Issued on: 10/05/2026 - 09:47Modified: 10/05/2026 - 11:40
5 min Reading time Share By: Joanna YORK
The self-proclaimed king of Switzerland is aware that not everyone likes what he is doing.
“The role of king is very special in Switzerland because it’s not really accepted. It's very controversial,” says Jonas Lauwiner, 31.
“But I don’t have too many haters,” he adds. “Nobody has stopped me, that's for sure, because it's not possible.”
King Jonas I, as he calls himself, declared himself Switzerland’s “symbolic” monarch with a 2019 coronation in Bern’s Nydegg Church that was attended by several members of the clergy.
Lauwiner, a resident of the city of Burgdorf in Bern who also works full-time at a pharmaceutical company, was dressed in full royal regalia, including a bejewelled 18-carat-gold crown.
Since then, he has acquired many of the attributes of a modern monarch: For media interviews he wears gilded military dress, he has an official website and an “imperial bank” with a “half sovereign coin”, and he is often accompanied by a 10-person-strong contingent “for protection”.
A video on his website shows his legionnaires running training operations with a collection of military hardware near a large countryside residence: the royal “palace”.
Switzerland has little historical tradition of a monarchy and there is no royal family in its constitution. “But I’m not a constitutional monarch,” says Lauwiner. “I'm a symbolic monarch. There is a king in Switzerland, and it's me, King Jonas.”
Many have dismissed Lauwiner as either an eccentric or a prankster, but if declaring himself king is a joke, it’s one that he takes seriously – especially when it comes to his “land empire”.
In the past decade the Swiss and Moroccan citizen has taken advantage of a loophole in Swiss law that states if a piece of land has no owner, anyone can claim it – for free.
He now owns around 150 such plots across Switzerland, including the land that contains his palace.
‘Land empire’
Lauwiner first became a landowner on his 20th birthday, when his father gifted him a small agricultural plot bought cheaply years before. “It was the biggest day for me. Since I was eight years old, I always wanted my own land. My dream finally was fulfilled,” he says.
“Then I wanted to expand.”
As luck would have it, the plot next door had no listed owner meaning, under Article 658 of the Swiss Civil Code, Lauwiner could legally claim it at the land registry, paying a few hundred francs in processing fees.
“Then I thought, this cannot be the only one: it would be too lucky if I just discovered the only plot in Switzerland. So, I started a big search, and I discovered another one, and another one, and another one,” he says.
Lauwiner has now claimed more than 117,000 square metres of previously ownerless Swiss territory. While a miniscule portion of Switzerland’s overall surface area, his property does include “strategic locations”, including 83 roads.
“Over 5,000 people per day drive over my roads to their homes,” he says.
This is the source of many of Lauwiner’s ongoing disputes with the Swiss authorities.
In the small village of Geuensee, local authorities want to reclaim a street that Lauwiner legally acquired, for which he has suggested they either pay 150,000 francs (€164,000) or rename it “Chemin Lauwiner” (Lauwiner Street).
The authorities refused his offer, and local lawyer Loris Fabrizio Mainardi filed a criminal complaint claiming “abusive exploitation for profit”.
“Mr. Lauwiner’s operetta-style drama doesn’t interest me as such. What drives me crazy is that he’s trying to pressure people who are in a vulnerable situation by imposing his own price demands on them,” Mainardi told local news channel RTS.
Others have been riled by the “maintenance costs” Lauwiner charges for the use of some roads.
“He is asking for money for something that doesn’t require a significant investment,” local MP Josef Schuler told RTS from the Lucerne village of Hochdorf, where Lauwiner owns another road.
“I think he’s kind of playing with us a bit.”
‘A full-time job’
Lauwiner argues maintenance costs are a necessary, if not profitable, part of his business.
“The only thing that I charge is a fee for maintenance, I don't make profit with these roads,” he says. “Sometimes I sell a road, and that's how I make profit.”
More income is generated from granting building permissions on his land and selling energy companies the right to install infrastructure such as pipes and cables.
Managing this “is a full-time job”, he says. “It’s not easy to maintain 149 plots of land”.
Multiple Swiss cantons now intend to modify their laws to give local municipalities first refusal on unclaimed land and prevent other individuals following in Lauwiner’s footsteps.
But, he says, this comes too late: ownerless properties were rare in the first place, and he has already claimed nearly all the plots that had any value. “There's only a few left, but they’re not worth the bother. You cannot do anything with them.”
He believes the authorities are reacting because it rankles that he has completed his “campaign” working inside the law – a permitted land grab that was there for the taking. “That's why it's so funny. They are just jealous that they did not have the idea,” he says.
Today, rather than an acquisition campaign, Lauwiner runs something more like a land management company, developing what he owns to make money and selling the parts that he doesn’t need.
It sounds rather more mundane than the high-profile diplomacy of a typical monarch, but he denies being power-hungry or desiring to expand his “empire”.
“I don't have energy for it. In the end, I really want to be at peace, on a beach somewhere, enjoying my life,” he says.
Even so, retirement from public life is not on his immediate agenda.
He won a seat on Burgdorf’s city council in 2024, getting nearly 700 votes as an independent candidate under the name “King Jonas Lauwiner”.
Now he is keen to run for higher office.
“The problem is it's very hard to get into as a single individual and I cannot take my troops into politics. But it’s something I really want to do. I'm trying for national council. I'm trying for the State Council. I’ll try for everything.”
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