Basel

Basel grew on a hill above a bend of the Rhine, and its bishops ruled it as a prince-bishopric from the 11th century. In 1225 the first bridge was built across the river, on the site of today's Middle Bridge, and the settlement of Kleinbasel formed around its far end. The city suffered badly in the 14th century: in 1349 dozens of its Jews were burned in the Basel massacre, and the earthquake of 1356 destroyed much of the city and the castles around it.

In the 15th century Basel became the focus of western Christendom during the Council of Basel of 1431–1449. Pope Pius II endowed its university in 1459, and it opened in 1460 as the oldest university in Switzerland, where Erasmus and Paracelsus later taught; printers such as Johann Froben made the city a centre of humanist publishing. On 9 June 1501 Basel joined the Swiss Confederation as its eleventh canton, and its reputation for tolerance made it a refuge for the Holbein family and, later, for figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche.

A commercial hub since the Renaissance, the city became a centre of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in the 20th century, and they still dominate it. In 1967 the citizens voted to buy Picasso paintings at risk of leaving the Kunstmuseum, making Basel the first city where a popular vote decided to acquire art for a public collection. The Roche towers, the first designed by Herzog & de Meuron and the second opened in 2022 as the tallest building in Switzerland, now mark the skyline.

Basel is a city of museums — some forty across the canton, an unusual number for its size — led by the Kunstmuseum, the Fondation Beyeler and the Museum Tinguely. Art Basel, founded here in 1970, brings the international art world to the Messe every June and has added fairs in Miami Beach, Hong Kong, Paris and Qatar.

The great event of the year is Fasnacht, the biggest carnival in Switzerland and on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage since 2017. It begins on the Monday after Ash Wednesday at precisely four in the morning with the Morgestraich, when masked cliques march through the darkened old town with piccolos, drums and lanterns, and it ends exactly 72 hours later. Its brass bands, the Guggemusige, are especially at home in the working-class streets of Kleinbasel.

The city's speech is Baseldytsch, and its identity is that of a border town and humanist city facing France and Germany as much as the rest of Switzerland. In summer the Rhine becomes a public space: people swim and float through the city, and the riverbanks and the small cable ferries are part of daily life. FC Basel carries the city's colours in football.

About 178,000 people live within the city limits, making Basel the third most populous city in Switzerland, and the canton of Basel-Stadt had about 202,000 residents in 2021, more than a third of them foreign nationals. The wider urban area spreads across three countries and holds around 900,000 people, and many workers commute in from France and Germany.

Basel is Switzerland's main centre for the pharmaceutical industry, home to Novartis and Roche, and the life sciences dominate its economy, alongside the university, the Messe and logistics. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision also sits here. Most people work in services, and about half of the working population travels to work by public transport.

The city is divided by the Rhine into Grossbasel on the left bank and Kleinbasel on the right. Daily rhythm follows the river in summer, when people head to the banks after work, and the calendar is set by Fasnacht, the autumn fair and the trade fairs that fill the hotels.

Basel's best-known speciality is the Basler Läckerli, a hard spice biscuit made of honey, hazelnuts, almonds, candied peel and kirsch, baked in a thin layer, glazed with sugar while still hot and cut into rectangles. The recipe goes back to the city's spice merchants several centuries ago, and it is sold all year round.

Fasnacht has its own food. During the Morgestraich, restaurants stay open in the early hours and serve Mehlsuppe, a flour soup, and Zibelewaie, an onion tart, to warm the crowds. Every morning except Sunday the market on the Marktplatz sells mostly local organic produce in front of the town hall.

Eating out tends to follow the geography of the city: traditional guild-house restaurants and cafés in the old town around the Marktplatz and the Spalenberg, and much of the nightlife in Kleinbasel across the river. Because the city sits on two borders, euro notes are taken in some places as well as francs.