Everything about Basel totally explained
Basel (
British English traditionally:
Basle [bɑːl] and more recently Basel ['ba:zəl], ['ba:zəl], [bɑl], [bazi'lɛːa], ) is
Switzerland's third most populous city (165,529 inhabitants (
2006); 731,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area stretching across the immediate cantonal and national boundaries made Basel Switzerland's second-largest urban area as of
2004).
Located in north-west Switzerland on the river
Rhine, Basel functions as a major industrial centre for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. The city borders both
Germany and
France. The Basel region, culturally extending into German
Baden-Württemberg and French
Alsace, reflects the heritage of its three
states in the modern Latin name: "
Regio TriRhena". It has the oldest
university of the Swiss Confederation (
1460).
History
During the days of the
Roman Empire, the settlement of
Augusta Raurica was founded 10 or 20 kilometres upstream of present Basel, and a castle was built on the hill overlooking the river where the Basel Münster now stands. But even older
Celtic settlements (including a
vitrified fort) have been discovered recently in the area predating the Roman castle. The city's position on the
Rhine long emphasised its importance: Basel for many centuries possessed the only bridge over the river "between
Lake Constance and the sea".
The town of Basel was called "Basilia" in
Latin, and this name is documented from the year 374 AD.
Since the donation of the Abbey Moutier-Grandvalto and all its possessions to Bishop Adalbero II. in 999 till the
Reformation, Basel was ruled by
prince-bishops (see
Bishop of Basel, whose memory is preserved in the
crosier shown on the Basle coat-of-arms - see above).
In 1019 the construction of the cathedral of Basel (known locally as the
Münster) began under German Emperor
Heinrich II.
In 1225–1226 the Bridge over the Rhine was constructed by
Bishop Heinrich von Thun and lesser Basel (Kleinbasel) founded as a beachhead to protect the bridge.
In
1356 the
Basel earthquake destroyed much of the city along with a
number of castles in the vicinity. The city offered courts in the city to nobles as an alternative to rebuilding their castles, in exchange for the nobles' military protection of the city.
In 1412 (or earlier) the well-known guesthouse
Zum Goldenen Sternen was established.
Basel became the focal point of western Christendom during the 15th century
Council of Basel (1431 –1449), including the 1439 AD election of
antipope Felix V.
In 1459 Pope
Pius II endowed the
University of Basel where such notables as
Erasmus of
Rotterdam,
Paracelsus and
Hans Holbein the Younger taught. At the same time the new craft of
printing was introduced to Basel by apprentices of
Gutenberg.
The Schwabe publishing house was founded 1488 by
Johannes Petri and is the oldest publishing house still in business.
Johann Froben also operated his printing house in Basel and was notable for publishing works by Erasmus. In 1495, Basel was incorporated in the Upper Rhenish
Imperial Circle, the bishop sitting on the Bench of the Ecclesiastical Princes. In 1500 the construction of the
Basel Münster was finished.
In 1501 Basel
de facto separated from the
Holy Roman Empire and joined the
Swiss Confederation as 11th canton, and began the construction of the city council building. The bishop continued to reside in Basel until the reformation of
Oecolampadius in 1529. The bishop's
crook was however retained as the city's coat of arms. In March 1536 the first edition of
Christianae religionis institutio (
Institutes of the Christian Religion) was published in Latin by
John Calvin at Basel. There are indications
Joachim Meyer, an influential 16th century author of a book on fighting (
kunst des Fechten) came from Basel.
Intended as a defence of
Huguenots then persecuted in France, Calvin's
Institutes was an exposition of Protestant Christian doctrine which later became known as
Calvinism. In 1543
De humani corporis fabrica, the first anatomy book was published and printed in Basel by
Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564). In 1662 the
Amerbaschsches Kabinett formed the basis of a collection and exposition, forming the core of the Basel Museum of Art.
In 1792 the
Republic of Rauracia, a revolutionary
French client republic, was created. It lasted until 1793. After three years of political agitation for equal rights and a short civil war in 1833 the disadvantaged countryside seceded from the Canton of Basle, forming the halfcanton of Basel-Landschaft. In 1912, the extraordinary congress of the
Second International was held in Basel, due to the outbreak of the
Balkan Wars
Accords
Throughout history, Basel has seen the conclusion of numerous accords. In 1499
Treaty of Basel was signed, ending the
Swabian War, and two years later Basel joined the
Swiss Confederation. In 1795,
two separate peace treaties between the revolutionary French Republic on the one hand and Prussia and Spain on the other brought about the collapse of the
First Coalition and the cessation of fighting in the
French Revolutionary Wars. In more recent times, on September 3, 1897, the
World Zionist Organization held its first congress in Basel under the leadership of
Theodor Herzl; this Jewish umbrella organization would later play an instrumental role in the creation of the state of
Israel. Because of the
Balkan Wars the
Second International held an extraordinary congress at Basel in 1912. In 1989, the
Basel Convention was opened for signature with the aim of preventing the export of hazardous waste from wealthy to developing nations for disposal.
Transport
The first-class location and the transportation infrastructure make Basel the top logistics center for Switzerland. Basel’s airport is set up for airfreight; heavy goods reach the city and the heart of continental Europe from the North Sea by ship along the Rhine. The main European routes for the highway and railway transportation of freight cross in Basel. The outstanding location benefits logistics corporations, which operate globally from Basel. Trading firms are traditionally well represented in the Basel Region.
Basel has Switzerland's only cargo port, through which goods pass along the navigable stretches of the
Rhine and connect to ocean-going ships at the port of
Rotterdam.
EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg is operated jointly by two countries, France and Switzerland. Contrary to popular belief, the airport is located completely on French soil. The airport itself is split into two architecturally independent sectors, one half serving the French side and the other half serving the Swiss side; there's a customs point at the middle of the airport so that people can "emigrate" to the other side of the airport.
Basel has long held an important place as a rail hub. Three railway stations — those of the German, French and Swiss networks — lie within the city (although the Swiss (Basel
SBB) and French (Basel
SNCF) stations are actually in the same complex, separated by Customs and Immigration facilities). The largest goods railway complex of the country is located just outside the city, spanning the municipalities of Muttenz and Pratteln. The new highspeed ICE railway line from Karlsruhe to Basel will be completed in 2008 while phase I of the
TGV-Est line, opened in June 2007, has reduced travel time from Basel to Paris to 3 1/2 hours.
Basel has an extensive public transportation network serving the city and connecting to surrounding suburbs. The green-colored local
trams and buses are operated by the BVB (
Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe
). The yellow-colored buses and trams are operated by the BLT
Baselland Transport, and connect areas in the nearby half-canton of Baselland to central Basel. The trams are powered by
overhead lines, and the bus fleet is mix of electric and conventional fuel-powered vehicles. The BVB also shares commuter bus lines in cooperation with transit authorities in the neighboring
Alsace region in
France and
Baden region in
Germany. The Regio-S-Bahn Basel, the commuter rail network connecting to suburbs surrounding the city, is jointly operated by SBB, SNCF and DB.
Within city limits, five bridges connect greater and lesser Basel, from upstream to downstream:
- Schwarzwaldbrücke (built 1972)
- Wettsteinbrücke (current structure built 1998, original bridge built 1879)
- Mittlere Brücke (current structure built 1905, original bridge built 1225 as the first bridge to cross the Rhine River)
- Johanniterbrücke (built 1967)
- Dreirosenbrücke (built 2004, original bridge built 1935)
A somewhat anachronistic yet still widely used system of ferry boats links the two shores. There are four ferries, each situated approximately midway between two bridges. Each is attached by a cable to a block that rides along another cable spanning the river at a height of 20 or 30
yards. To cross the river, the ferryman orients the boat around 45° from the current so that the current pushes the boat across the river. This form of transportation is therefore completely hydraulically driven, requiring no outside energy source.
Industry and trade
An annual Federal Swiss trade fair (Mustermesse) takes place in Kleinbasel on the right bank of the Rhine. Other important trade shows include "
BaselWorld" (watches and
jewelry),
Art Basel, Orbit and Cultura.
The Swiss chemical industry operates largely from Basel, with
Novartis,
Syngenta,
Ciba Specialty Chemicals,
Clariant, and
Hoffmann-La Roche headquartered there. Pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals have become the modern focus of the city's industrial production. Some of the chemical industry's most notable creations include
DDT,
Araldite,
Valium,
Rohypnol and
LSD.
UBS AG maintains central offices in Basel, giving finance a pivotal role in the local economy. The importance of banking began when the
Bank for International Settlements located within the city in 1930. Basel's innovative financial industry includes institutions like the
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Responsible for the Basel Accords (
Basel I and
Basel II), this organization fundamentally changed
Risk Management within its industry.
Basel has Switzerland's tallest building,
Basler Messeturm.
Quarters
Basel is subdivided into 19 quarters (
Quartiere). The municipalities of
Riehen and
Bettingen, outside the city limits of Basel, are included in the canton of Basel-City as rural quarters (
Landquartiere).
| Quartier |
ha |
Quartier |
ha |
| Altstadt Grossbasel (central Grossbasel) |
37.63 |
Altstadt Kleinbasel (central Kleinbasel) |
24.21 |
| Vorstädte (Suburbs) |
89.66 |
Clara |
23.66 |
| Am Ring |
90.98 |
Wettstein |
75.44 |
| Breite |
68.39 |
Hirzbrunnen |
305.32 |
| St. Alban |
294.46 |
Rosental |
64.33 |
| Gundeldingen |
123.19 |
Mattäus |
59.14 |
| Bruderholz |
259.61 |
Klybeck |
91.19 |
| Bachletten |
151.39 |
Kleinhüningen |
136.11 |
| Gotthelf |
46.62 |
City of Basel |
2275.05 |
| Iselin |
109.82 |
Riehen |
1086.10 |
| St. Johann |
223.90 |
Bettingen |
222.69 |
| |
|
Canton of Basel-City |
3583.84 |
Architecture
The red sandstone
Münster, one of the foremost late-Romanesque/early Gothic buildings in the Upper Rhine, was badly damaged in the great earthquake of 1356, rebuilt in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, extensively reconstructed in the mid-nineteenth century and further restored in the late twentieth century. A memorial to
Erasmus lies inside the Münster.
Basel is also host to an array of buildings by internationally renowned architects, such as the
Beyeler Foundation by
Renzo Piano, or the
Vitra complex in nearby Weil am Rhein, comprised of buildings by architects such as
Zaha Hadid (fire station),
Frank Gehry (
design museum),
Alvaro Siza Vieira (factory building) and
Tadao Ando (conference centre). Basel also features buildings by
Mario Botta (Jean Tinguely Museum and Bank of International settlements) and
Herzog & de Meuron (whose architectural practice is in Basel, and who are best known as the architects of
Tate Modern in London). The city received the
Wakker Prize in
1996.
Heritage sites
Basel features a great number of
heritage sites of national significance. These include the entire
Old Town of Basel as well as the following buildings and collections:
Churches and monasteries: Basel Münster, St. Albankirche, Kirche St. Antonius, the former Barfüsserkirche, Elisabethenkirche, Klingentalkirche, Leonhardskirche, Martinskirche, Pauluskirche, Peterskirche, Alt Katholische Predigerkirche, Johanneskirche, Theodorskirche (with Early Middle Age gravefield), the synagogue (1867), the former Kartause (later an orphanage) and the Kleines Klingental (formerly a Dominican monastery).
Secular buildings: Haus zum Raben, Dompropstei (Antikenmuseum), Goldener Sternen, Seidenhof (with a monument to Rudolf von Habsburg), Kleiner Kirschgarten, Im Vogelsang housing estate, Bruderholzschulhaus, Safranzunft, Schloss Gundeldingen, Brunschwilerhaus, Holsteinerhof, Spiesshof, City hall, Geltenzunft, Haus Auf Burg (with Sacher archive), Domhof, Schönes Haus and Schöner Hof, Zerkindenhof, Wildtsches Haus, Blaues Haus (Reichensteinerhof), Weisses Haus (Wendelstörferhof), Sandgrube, Bischofshof, Ramsteinerhof, Hohenfirstenhof, Haus zur Mücke, Wohnhaus für alleinstehende Frauen (1928), Feuerschützenhaus, Spalenhof, Lohnhof, Gate of Saint Alban, Gate of Saint John, the city walls with the Letziturm and the inner wall tower, Gate of Spalen, the Hoffmann-La Roche premises, Bürgerspital (1940-45), Badischer Bahnhof with fountain (1913), central railway station (1907), Mittlere Rheinbrücke, Fischmarktbrunnen.
Archaeological sites: Gallo-Roman settlement on the Gasfabrik premises, Alemannic burial fields Gotterbarmweg and Kleinhüningen, early medieval buildings Schneidergasse 2-16.
Museums, archives and collections: State Archives, Swiss Economic Archives, University library, Antikenmuseum, Art Museum and engravings cabinet, Museum of Contemporary Art, Gallizianmühle, Natural History Museum (with Rütimeyer library), Museum of Cultures, Kirschgartenmuseum, Historical Museum, Jewish Museum, Music Museum, Sport Museum, Sculpture Hall, Anatomical collection, Stadt- und Münstermuseum (Kleines Klingental), Gewerbemuseum, Pharmazie-Historisches Museum, Caricature and Cartoon Museum.
Education
Basel hosts Switzerland's oldest university, the
University of Basel, dating from
1459. Erasmus,
Paracelsus,
Daniel Bernoulli,
Leonhard Euler,
Jacob Burckhardt, and
Friedrich Nietzsche worked here. More recently, its work in tropical medicine has gained prominence.
Basel is renowned for various scientific societies, as the Entomological Society of Basel (Entomologische Gesellschaft Basel, EGB), which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005.
Basel counts several International Schools, including the
International School of Basel, the Minerva School and the Rhine Academy. Many expatriate workers and their children come to Basel due to the large presence of pharmaceutical companies, and the majority of those children come to study at the international schools of Basel.
Politics
Geo-politically, the city of Basel functions as the capital of the
Swiss half-canton of
Basel-Stadt, though several of its
suburbs form part of the half-canton of
Basel-Landschaft or of the canton of
Aargau.
Energy
Basel is at the forefront of a national vision to more than halve energy use in Switzerland by the year
2050. In order to research, develop and commercialise the technologies and techniques required for the country to become a '
2000 Watt society', a number of projects have been set up since
2001 in the Basel metropolitan area. These including demonstration buildings constructed to
MINERGIE or
Passivhaus standards,
electricity generation from
renewable energy sources (including a
hot dry rock geothermal energy project which caused significant tremors), and vehicles using
natural gas,
hydrogen and
biogas.
People from Basel
Lucius Munatius Plancus (c.87 BC - c.15 BC), city founder
Joachim Meyer (c. 1537?-1571), fencer and author
James Bernoulli (1654-1705), mathematician
Johann Bernoulli (1667-1748), mathematician
Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) mathematician
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), mathematician
Jakob Emanuel Handmann (1718-1781), painter
Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826), poet & author
Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), professor in history, theology, philosophy
Karl Barth (1886-1968), Reformed Protestant theologian
Peter Birkhäuser (1911-1976), painter
Arthur Cohn (1927- ), film producer (won 6 Oscars)
Roger Federer (1981- ), tennis player
Katy French (1983-2007), Model and Socialite
Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), religious philosopher
People in Basel
Albert Hoffman (1906-2008), chemist, inventor of LSD
Sport
Basel has a reputation in Switzerland as a successful sporting city. The football club FC Basel continues to be successful and in recognition of this the city will be one of the venues for the 2008 European Championships, as well as Geneva, Zürich and Bern. The championships will be jointly hosted by Switzerland and Austria.
Basel features a large football stadium, a modern ice hockey hall and an admitted sports hall.
The largest indoor tennis event in Europe occurs in Basel every October. The best ATP-Professionals play every year at the "Swiss Indoors".
Culture
Basel has a reputation as one of the most important cultural cities in Europe. In 1997, it contended to become the "European Capital of Culture". In May 2004, the fifth EJCF choir festival opened: this Basel tradition started in 1992. Host of this festival is the local Basel Boys Choir.
The carnival of the city of Basel (Basler Fasnacht) is a major cultural event in the year. The carnival is the biggest in Switzerland and attracts large crowds every year, despite the fact that it starts at four in the morning (Morgestraich) and lasts for exactly 72 hours, taking in various parades.
For more information see also "Welcome to Basel Fasnacht", February 2001
Basler Zeitung ("Baz") is the local newspaper.
Museums
The Basel Museums cover a broad and diverse spectrum of collections with a marked concentration in the fine arts. They house numerous holdings of international significance. The over three dozen institutions yield an extraordinarily high density of museums compared to other cities of similar size and draw over one million visitors annually.
Constituting an essential component of Basel culture and cultural policy, the museums are the result of closely interwoven private and public collecting activities and promotion of arts and culture going back to the 16th century. The public museum collection was first created back in 1661 and represents the oldest public collection in continuous existence. Since the late 1980s, various private collections have been made accessible to the public in new purpose-built structures that have been recognized as acclaimed examples of avant-garde museum architecture.
Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig Ancient cultures of the mediterranean museum (External Link)
Augusta Raurica Roman open-air museum (External Link)
Basel Paper Mill (German: Basler Papiermühle) (External Link)
Beyeler Foundation (Fondation Beyeler) Beyeler Museum (Fondation Beyeler)
Botanical Garden Basel One of the oldest botanical gardens in the world
Caricature & Cartoon Museum Basel (German: Karikatur & Cartoon Museum Basel) (External Link)
Dollhouse Museum (German: Puppenhausmuseum) (External Link)
Historical Museum Basel (German: Historisches Museum Basel) (External Link)
Kunsthalle Basel Modern and contemporary art museum (External Link)
Kunstmuseum Basel Upper Rhenish and Flemish paintings, drawings from 1400 to 1600 and 19th- to 21st-century art (External Link)
Monteverdi Automuseum (External Link)
Museum of Cultures Basel (German: Museum der Kulturen Basel) Large collections on European and non-Europeancultural life (External Link)
Museum of Contemporary Art Art from the 1960s up to the present (External Link)
Music Museum (German: Musikmuseum) of the Basel Historic Museum
Natural History Museum of Basel (German: Naturhistorisches Museum Basel) (External Link)
Pharmazie-Historisches Museum der Universität Basel (External Link)
Schaulager Modern and contemporary art museum (External Link)
Swiss Architecture Museum (German: Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum) (External Link)
Tinguely Museum Life and work of the major Swiss iron sculptor Jean Tinguely (External Link)
Vitra Design Museum Museum in Weil am Rhein near Basel (External Link)Further Information
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