Why is it that there is no article here:
Mein Freund hat um 15 Uhr einem Termin IN Hamburg
While we see one here:
Wo Arbeitet dein Freund ? IN DER Schweiz
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What's the difference? You're (correctly) using "in" in both examples. – PMF Jan 16 '14 at 10:48
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What I mean, is why it's in der schweiz and not just in Schweiz – Lex Jan 16 '14 at 11:13
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Geographical entities that have a female or male gender are used with the article. The rest usually goes with "nach" and without the neuter "das", nowever, as CarstenSchultz mentioned in a comment, there are exception for which you do have to use the article. Whether or not that is specific to places in Germany, I don't know.
die Schweiz, der Iran, die USA (plural), der Sudan, die Normandie, die Toskana
(das) Deutschland, (das) Frankreich, (das) Hamburg, (das) Kreuzberg (district of Berlin), das Schweden, ...
Exceptions:
ins Allgäu, ins Baskenland,...
You should change the question to point out you are confused be the "DER" in "in der Schweiz" This is a problem i never thought of.
You would say "In Holland", too.. but "In Schweiz" is wrong. Locations that are not neutral (gender) require an article (as Emanuel said)
Further Examples are: In den Niederlanden. In den USA. (while these are plurals, i don't know any other examples like Schweiz)
And be careful with islands, as island do not use "in" but "auf" - "Auf den Seychellen", "Auf Madagaskar" etc.
