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.

Through the Centuries

One face per century — the most globally famous figure born in Basel during each.

What Basel Is Known For

Click any row to filter the list of people below.

Politician is Basel's biggest profession — 10% of all notables (157).

Basel over-indexes on art historian8.0× the global rate.

Basel under-produces football — only 0.4× the global rate.

  1. Politician157
  2. Actor100
  3. Painter83
  4. Football70
  5. Writer70
  6. Historian69
  7. Author46
  8. Academic42
  1. Art Historian258.0×
  2. Philologist167.4×
  3. Theologian274.5×
  4. Historian694.0×
  5. Mathematician293.5×
  6. Author463.2×
  7. Entrepreneur162.9×
  8. Botanist172.6×
  1. Football700.4×
  2. Singer210.6×

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.

1500155016001650170017501800185019001950
  • Writing
  • Science
  • Politics & Law
  • Art & Design
  • Film & TV
  • Sports
  • Other
All1,646
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Showing 24 of 1,646 notable people

0042 ANATOMIST

Wilhelm His Sr.

1831 - 1904

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0121 BOTANIST

Konrad H. Christ

1833 - 1933

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0126 PAINTER

Ernst Stückelberg (painter)

1831 - 1903

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0129 PSYCHIATRIST

Gottlieb Burckhardt

1836 - 1907

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0194 LEXICOGRAPHER

Eduard Wölfflin

1831 - 1908

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0238 PHYSICIST

Eduard Hagenbach-Bischoff

1833 - 1910

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0349 ART HISTORIAN

Johann Jakob Bernoulli

1831 - 1913

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0390 BOTANIST

Carl Gustav Bernoulli

1834 - 1878

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0431 JUDGE

Andreas Heusler (Jurist, 1834)

1834 - 1921

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0438 HISTORIAN

Moritz Roth

1839 - 1914

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0478 ZOOLOGIST

Fritz Müller (doctor)

1834 - 1895

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0479 POLITICIAN

Karl Burckhardt

1830 - 1893

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0518 CHEMIST

Friedrich Goppelsroeder

1837 - 1919

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0655 POLITICIAN

Karl Rudolf Stehlin

1831 - 1881

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0656 HISTORIAN

Wilhelm Vischer (Historiker)

1833 - 1886

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0687 ORNITHOLOGIST

Carl Euler

1834 - 1901

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0691 BANK

Johannes Frutiger

1836 - 1899

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0705 POLITICIAN

Johann Rudolf Geigy-Merian

1830 - 1917

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0967 INVENTOR

Rudolf Schmidt (Oberst)

1832 - 1898

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1044 PAINTER

Edward L. Custer

1837 - 1881

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1051 ARCHITECT

Paul Reber (Architekt)

1835 - 1908

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1153 ENGINEER

Achilles Thommen

1832 - 1893

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1222 AUTHOR

Amalie Schneider-Schlöth

1839 - 1888

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1571 RESTAURATEUR

Dietrich Holzach

1836 - 1905

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