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 1820s Clear ×
Arnold Böcklin
1827 - 1901
Jacob Achilles Mähly
1828 - 1902
Jakob Lukas Schabelitz
1827 - 1899
Johann Jakob Stehlin der Jüngere
1826 - 1894
Alphons Koechlin
1821 - 1893
August Beck (Maler)
1823 - 1872
August Raillard
1821 - 1889
Heinrich Christoph Gottlieb Stier
1825 - 1896
Wilhelm Klein (Regierungsrat)
1825 - 1887
Hans Wieland (Offizier)
1825 - 1864
Rudolf Merian
1820 - 1891
Franz Joseph Lederle
1826 - 1905
Josef Schetty
1824 - 1894
Heinrich Wieland (Offizier)
1822 - 1894
George Schwob
1822 - 1892