sentences:  The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside Europe are found in the United States and Canada.Although the modern state of Switzerland originated in 1848, the period of romantic nationalism, it is not a nation-state, and the Swiss are not usually considered to form a single ethnic group, but a confederacy (') or ' ("nation of will", "nation by choice", that is, a consociational state), a term coined in conscious contrast to "nation" in the conventionally linguistic or ethnic sense of the term.The demonym "Swiss" (formerly in English also "Switzer") and the name of Switzerland, ultimately derive from the toponym "Schwyz", have been in widespread use to refer to the Old Swiss Confederacy since the 16th century.