The Swiss canton shown in the spaghetti-tree hoax report was Ticino.
The fictional report portrayed a family harvesting spaghetti in southern Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. The setting helped make the story plausible because Ticino lies around Lake Lugano, a region associated with Italian language and culture—and therefore with pasta in the imagination of British viewers.
Some footage was filmed near Castagnola, close to Lake Lugano, while other scenes were staged elsewhere, including locations in England. The report blended real Swiss scenery, traditional-looking harvest imagery, and invented details about breeding trees for spaghetti of the ideal length. It also claimed that a mild winter had reduced the imaginary spaghetti weevil.
Ticino is Switzerland’s southernmost canton and borders Italy. Its largest city is Lugano, whose lake provided the visual setting associated with the hoax. The report did not show a real agricultural tradition: spaghetti does not grow on trees, and the broadcast was an April Fools’ joke. Zurich, Geneva, and Valais are genuine Swiss cantons, but none was the canton identified in the report.