47.5606° N, 7.5906° E
BASEL
Most Famous People Born in Basel, Switzerland
- Notable people
- 1,646
- Peak decade
- 1950s
- Median birth year
- 1922
- Most distinctive
- Art Historian 8.0×
A Rhine city whose distinctive professions are art historians, philologists, theologians, historians, and mathematicians — the trades of a humanist university town that published Erasmus, Holbein, and the first printed Greek New Testament. Euler was born here, so were both Bernoulli brothers, and Jacob Burckhardt more or less invented art history at the university. The 15th- and 16th-century bench is one of the heaviest in Switzerland, and Roger Federer is the most recent addition.
One face per century — the most globally famous figure born in Basel during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1950s with 150 notable births.
What Basel Is Known For
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Politician is Basel's biggest profession — 10% of all notables (157).
Basel over-indexes on art historian — 8.0× the global rate.
Basel under-produces football — only 0.4× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Basel's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Writing
- Science
- Politics & Law
- Art & Design
- Film & TV
- Sports
- Other
- Filtered to 1800s Clear ×
Christoph Merian
1800 - 1858
Melchior Berri
1801 - 1854
Johann Jacob Weber
1803 - 1880
Karl Rudolf Hagenbach
1801 - 1874
Johann Jakob Herzog
1805 - 1882
Johann Jakob Stehlin
1803 - 1879
Ludwig Imhoff
1801 - 1868
Jacob Johann Hagenbach
1802 - 1825
Amadeus Merian
1808 - 1889
Wilhelm Vischer-Bilfinger
1808 - 1874
Rudolf Müller (Landschaftsmaler)
1802 - 1885
Georges Eugène Blanchard
1805 - 1876
Friedrich Brenner (Psychiater)
1809 - 1874
Andreas Heusler (Jurist, 1802)
1802 - 1868
Emil Remigius Frey
1803 - 1889
Daniel Albert Fechter
1805 - 1876
Johann Rudolf Kölner
1800 - 1877
Johann Karl Lichtenhahn
1805 - 1860
Benedikt Banga
1802 - 1865
Balthasar Reber
1805 - 1875
Abel Burckhardt
1805 - 1882
Johann Jakob Hug
1801 - 1849
Johann Jacob Steinmann
1800 - 1844
Ludwig August Burckhardt
1808 - 1863
Georg Felber
1804 - 1861
Hans Georg Stehlin (Unternehmer)
1806 - 1871
Rudolf Wäffler
1804 - 1867
Johann Heinrich Neustück
1802 - 1868
Samuel Bachofen
1806 - 1889