The European Organization for Nuclear Research is commonly known by the four-letter acronym CERN (or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche nucléaire in French). CERN is an intergovernmental organization based on the French-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.
Established in 1954 with 12 member states, it now comprises 23 member states and serves as the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Its main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research, and it has been the site of many important achievements in particle physics. Additionally, CERN is the birthplace of the World Wide Web.