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 1810s Clear ×
Jacob Burckhardt
1818 - 1897
Johann Jakob Bachofen
1815 - 1887
Johann Jakob Frey
1813 - 1865
Ferdinand Schlöth
1818 - 1891
Raphael Christen
1811 - 1880
August Stähelin
1812 - 1886
Christoph Riggenbach
1810 - 1863
Rudolf Paravicini
1815 - 1888
Johann Jakob Speiser
1813 - 1856
Karl Sarasin
1815 - 1886
Johannes Schnell
1812 - 1889
Karl Johann Brenner
1814 - 1883
Johann Jakob à Wengen
1814 - 1875