🇨🇭 Switzerland · North and the cities
Basel is the city on the bend of the Rhine, the 'corner of Switzerland' where the country looks out at France and Germany. Here the great European river, coming down from the Alps on its way to the North Sea, draws a curve and separates Grossbasel (Greater Basel), climbing the left bank with its medieval old town and its red sandstone cathedral, from Kleinbasel (Lesser Basel) on the other side. It is a border city, open and cosmopolitan, breathing Swiss tradition, Renaissance refinement and the avant-garde all at once.
If Zurich is the city of money and Geneva the city of diplomacy, Basel is the cultural capital of Switzerland. In a small area it packs in close to forty museums — one of the highest densities in the world — led by the Fondation Beyeler, the Kunstmuseum (the oldest public art museum in the world) and the cheerful Museum Tinguely. To that artistic calling add Art Basel, the most important contemporary art fair on the planet, and contemporary architecture signed by the very best, largely thanks to the power of its pharmaceutical industry.
But Basel also knows how to have fun. Every year its Fasnacht (the Carnival) brings the city to a halt for three days of music, masks and parades that start at four in the morning with the lights switched off. And in summer the people of Basel turn the Rhine into an urban swimming pool: they jump in upstream and let the current carry them, with their clothes stuffed into a waterproof bag that doubles as a float. This guide covers the essentials of a cultured, borderland and surprisingly laid-back city.
Basel has very old roots. Nearby, at Augusta Raurica, the Romans founded around 44 BC one of the most important colonies north of the Alps, whose ruins can still be visited today. The settlement that would become today's city is mentioned as 'Basilia' in the 4th century. During the Middle Ages, Basel was an episcopal city governed by prince-bishops, and it had a moment of European prominence with the Council of Basel (1431-1449). In 1460 the University of Basel was founded, the oldest in Switzerland, which drew humanists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, who lived and died in the city, and made Basel a great centre of printing and Renaissance humanism. In 1501 Basel joined the Swiss Confederation, and shortly afterwards embraced the Protestant Reformation (1529). Its border position made it a commercial and intellectual crossroads. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the growth of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry — with giants such as the forerunners of Novartis and Roche — turned Basel into an economic power. In 1897 it hosted the first Zionist Congress, convened by Theodor Herzl. Today it combines its medieval and humanist heritage with its role as cultural capital and pharmaceutical hub of Switzerland. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The heart of German Switzerland and its urban plateau: Zurich, Zwingli's city turned financial capital; Bern, the Zähringen city-state that is today the federal capital; Basel, cradle of humanism and of Erasmus on the Rhine; and Lucerne, the first city to join the Pact.
Read the history of North and the cities →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before medieval Basel existed, the region on the bend of the Rhine was already inhabited and urbanised. Around the middle of the 1st century BC the Romans founded nearby the colony of Augusta Raurica (in today's Augst), which would become one of the most important Roman cities north of the Alps. It grew to several thousand inhabitants and had a theatre, a forum, temples, baths and all the facilities of a prosperous Roman city, in a strategic position on the Rhine, the frontier of the Empire.
The name 'Basilia' is first documented in the 4th century, referring to a fortified settlement on the spot where the old town stands today, around the cathedral hill. With the Roman crisis and withdrawal, Augusta Raurica declined and the population concentrated in the fortified stronghold of Basilia, easier to defend in insecure times. From that late Roman settlement runs the continuity of habitation that would lead to the medieval city.
Today the ruins of Augusta Raurica form the most important Roman site in Switzerland, an open-air archaeological park that preserves its theatre and numerous remains, and a museum displaying the famous Kaiseraugst silver treasure. They are proof that the urban history of the Basel region goes back to Antiquity, two thousand years ago.
During the Middle Ages, Basel was an episcopal city: its lord was the bishop, who governed as prince-bishop within the Holy Roman Empire. The city grew around its cathedral, on the hill above the Rhine, and prospered thanks to its position at the crossroads of the trade routes linking northern and southern Europe, the Rhine with the alpine passes. One dramatic episode marked its urban history: the earthquake of 1356, the most destructive known in central Europe, which flattened much of the city and forced a long rebuilding.
Basel's great moment of European prominence came in the 15th century with the Council of Basel (1431-1449), one of the great councils of the Catholic Church, convened to reform the Church and resolve the schism. For almost two decades the city was a centre of Christendom, receiving prelates, theologians, diplomats and scholars from all over Europe. That complex and conflict-ridden council put Basel on the intellectual map of the continent.
Its cultural standing was consolidated in 1460 with the founding of the University of Basel, the oldest in Switzerland, authorised by Pope Pius II (who had taken part in the council). The university turned the city into a magnet for students and scholars, and laid the ground for the extraordinary humanist flowering that would follow.
Thanks to its university and its open atmosphere, Basel became in the 16th century one of the great centres of Renaissance humanism and of printing in Europe. The city drew printers and publishers who made it a capital of the book: Basel workshops, such as that of the famous Johann Froben, published works of scholarship, critical editions of classical texts and of the Church Fathers, and books that circulated across the continent.
The figure who embodies that splendour is Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most influential of the European humanists. Erasmus lived in Basel for long stretches, drawn by its presses and its intellectual atmosphere, and there he published many of his works, among them his famous edition of the New Testament in Greek. He died in the city in 1536 and is buried in the cathedral, which ties the name of Basel forever to that of the great humanist.
The painter Hans Holbein the Younger also belonged to that circle; he worked in the city and left memorable portraits (including one of Erasmus), today among the treasures of the Kunstmuseum. The combination of university, printing, humanism and art made Renaissance Basel one of the most cultured cities in Europe, a calling the city keeps today as the cultural capital of Switzerland.
In 1501 Basel joined the Swiss Confederation as its eleventh member. Its entry brought the alliance a rich, cultured city strategically placed on the northern border, a bridge to the Rhine and the Germanic world. The move mattered too because it consolidated the presence of the western and northern cities in a confederation whose heart until then had been in the central cantons.
A few decades later, Basel joined the movement shaking Christendom: the Protestant Reformation. Around 1529, after a period of tension and under the influence of the reformer Johannes Oecolampadius, the city officially adopted the Reformation. As in other Swiss cities, this meant the transformation of religious institutions, the secularisation of Church property and an episode of iconoclasm in which images were removed from the churches and destroyed. The cathedral passed to Reformed worship.
Adopting the Reformation strengthened Basel's ties with other Protestant cities and with the world of Reformed printing and scholarship. The city nonetheless kept its tradition of intellectual openness, which over the centuries made it a refuge for thinkers and for the persecuted, and a crossroads of ideas as important as its crossroads of trade routes.
The 19th century transformed Basel profoundly. Out of its textile tradition — in particular the production of silk ribbons, which had made the city rich — grew an industry of chemical dyes and colourants that over time would evolve into fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. From those pioneering workshops and companies came the giants that are today Basel's economic symbol: the companies that would in time become Novartis and Roche, among the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world.
This industrial growth made Basel one of the most prosperous cities in Switzerland and a first-rank centre of scientific research. Life sciences are today the heart of its economy, drawing professionals from all over the world and giving the city its cosmopolitan, international character. That wealth also funded much of its extraordinary cultural and architectural life.
Economic drive also left its mark on the look of the city: corporate campuses designed by the most prestigious architects on the planet, first-rate private museums and Basel's consolidation as the home of Art Basel, the most important contemporary art fair in the world. Industry, science and culture intertwine in modern Basel as they rarely do in a city of its size.
Basel also holds a place in world history through an event of enormous consequence: in 1897 the city hosted the First Zionist Congress, convened by Theodor Herzl. At that congress, held in Basel's municipal casino, the foundations of the modern Zionist movement were laid and the goal of creating a national home for the Jewish people was proclaimed, a milestone with deep consequences in the 20th century. The choice of Basel, a neutral, open and well-connected city, was no accident.
Through the 20th century and up to today, Basel has cultivated its identity as the cultural capital of Switzerland. Its density of museums is one of the highest in the world, led by the Fondation Beyeler, the Kunstmuseum and the Museum Tinguely. Since 1970 the Art Basel fair has become the most prestigious contemporary art event on the planet, with sister editions in Miami, Hong Kong and Paris. And the city remains an architectural laboratory, partly thanks to the world-famous local practice Herzog & de Meuron.
But alongside that cultured, cosmopolitan face, Basel keeps its most cherished traditions, embodied in the Basler Fasnacht, its carnival, listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2017. Every year, for three days, the people of Basel take over the streets with masks, drums and fifes, in a festival that starts at four in the morning with the city in darkness. Tradition and the avant-garde live side by side in one of the most singular cities in Switzerland.