View of the Swiss-German border area from the edge of the Aeussere Baselstraße (in English: "Outer Basel Street") in the municipality of Riehen, Canton of Basel-City, Switzerland
Some background information:
Riehen is a municipality in the Canton of Basel-City in Switzerland. Together with the city of Basel and Bettingen, Riehen is one of three municipalities in the canton. Riehen hosts the Fondation Beyeler (a privately owned art gallery) as well as a toy museum and several parks. The municipality is located on the right bank of the Rhine on the Swiss-German border between Wiese and the Chrischona Hill. A salient around 2 km in length protrudes from the northeast, over the Herrenwald forest.
Riehen has a population of roughly 21,800. The municipality is commonly considered one of the more affluent suburbs of Basel, as evidenced by numerous villas in Riehen’s municipal area. The Basel tram network runs through Riehen. Both the mathematician Leonhard Euler and the tennis player Roger Federer spent their childhood in Riehen.
Basel (resp. Basle) is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine in the immediate vicinity of the French and German borders. With about 180,000 inhabitants Basel is Switzerland's third-most-populous city (after Zurich and Geneva).The official language of Basel is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German.
Basel is commonly considered to be the cultural capital of Switzerland. The city is famous for its many museums, ranging from the Kunstmuseum, the first collection of art accessible to the public in the world (since 1661) and the largest museum of art in Switzerland, to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the first public museum of this type in Europe. Forty museums are spread throughout the city-canton, making Basel one of the largest cultural centres in Europe in relation to its size and population.
The University of Basel, Switzerland's oldest university (founded in 1460), and the city's centuries-long commitment to humanism, have made Basel a safe haven at times of political unrest in other parts of Europe for such notable people as Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Holbein family, Friedrich Nietzsche, and in the 20th century also Hermann Hesse and Karl Jaspers.
In the 1st century, the Romans founded a settlement on the site of today’s Basel Minster, which they extended into a castrum (a fortified camp) in the 3rd century. At that time the area was incorporated in the Roman province of Germania Superior. In the 4th century, the settlement was first named Basilia, from which Basel derives its later name.
After being repelled from crossing the Rhine several times, the Germanic tribe of the Alemanni succeeded in 406. They conquered what is today Alsace in France and a large part of the Swiss Plateau and founded the Duchy of Alemannia. However, in the 6th century, this duchy fell under Frankish rule.
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the Alemannic and Frankish settlement of Basel gradually grew around the old Roman castle and already in the 7th century, Basel began minting its own coins. At that time, Basel was still part of the Archdiocese of Besançon. But in the 8th century, a separate bishopric of Basel was established and at the beginning of the 9th century, a first cathedral was built on the site of the Roman castle.
At the partition of the Carolingian Empire, Basel was first given to West Francia, but with the treaty of Meerssen passed to East Francia in 870. In 917, the town was destroyed by the Magyars. After it had been rebuilt, it became part of Upper Burgundy, and as such was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1032.
From 999 until the Reformation, Basel was ruled by Prince-Bishops. In 1019, the construction of Basel’s cathedral began and around 1100 the first city walls were built. In the 12th century, a city council of nobles and burghers was established and in 1225, the first bridge across the River Rhine was built. The bridge was largely funded by Basel's Jewish community who had settled there a century earlier. Basel’s first city guild were the furriers, established in 1226, but in the course of the 13th century, altogether 15 guilds were founded, reflecting the increasing economic prosperity of the city.
Political conflicts between the bishops and the burghers begin in the mid-13th century and continue throughout the 14th century. By the late 14th century, the city was for all practical purposes independent although it continued to nominally pledge fealty to the bishops. The House of Habsburg made an unsuccessful attempt to gain control over the city. However, it caused a political split among the burghers of Basel into a pro-Habsburg faction, known as the Sterner, and an anti-Habsburg faction, known as the Psitticher.
In 1348, the Black Death reached Basel. The Jews were blamed and hence, in 1349, an estimated 50 to 70 Jews were executed by burning. This sad event has become known as the Basel massacre. In 1356, an earthquake destroyed much of the city along with a number of castles in the vicinity.
A riot on 26th February 1376, known as Boese Fasnacht (in English: "Evil Carnival"), led to the killing of a number of men of Leopold III, Duke of Austria. This was seen as a serious breach of the peace. The city council blamed "foreign ruffians" for this and executed twelve alleged perpetrators. Leopold nevertheless had the city placed under imperial ban. In a treaty Basel was given a heavy fine and was brought under Habsburg control.
To free itself from Habsburg hegemony, Basel joined the Swabian League of Cities in 1385. In 1393, in the Battle of Sempach, many knights of the pro-Habsburg faction, along with duke Leopold himself, were killed. Following the battle, a formal treaty with Habsburg was made. Beginning around 1400, Basel had gained its de facto independence from both the bishop and the Habsburgs and hence, was free to pursue its own policy of territorial expansion. During the council of Basel, which took place between 1431 and 1449, the city became the focal point of western Christianity.
In the Swabian War of 1499, Basel remained neutral despite being plundered by soldiers of both sides. The Treaty of Basel ended the war and granted the Swiss confederates exemptions from the emperor Maximillian's taxes and jurisdictions, separating Switzerland de facto from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In 1501, Basel joined the Swiss Confederation as its eleventh canton. The city was a great win for the Confederation, as it had a strategic location, good relations with Strasbourg and Mulhouse, and control of the corn imports from the Alsace region.
In 1529, the city became Protestant and the bishop's seat was moved to Porrentruy. The bishop's crook was however retained as the city's coat of arms. In 1536, the first edition of Christianae religionis institutio, John Calvin's great exposition of the Calvinist doctrine, was published at Basel.
In 1792, the Republic of Rauracia, a revolutionary French client republic, was created. It lasted until 1793. After three years of political agitation and a short civil war in 1833, the disadvantaged countryside seceded from the Canton of Basel, forming the half canton of Basel-Landschaft (in English: "Basel-Country").
Today, the name of the city is internationally known through institutions like Basel Accords, the art fair Art Basel and the football club FC Basel. The Swiss chemical industry operates largely from Basel, and Basel also has a large pharmaceutical industry. International companies like Novartis, Syngenta, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Clariant, Hoffmann-La Roche, Basilea Pharmaceutica and Actelion are headquartered there. Finally, it should also be mentioned that in 2019, the American human resources consulting firm Mercer ranked Basel among the ten most liveable cities in the world together with the two other Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva.
