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
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 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
- Field: Theologian Clear ×
Karl Barth
1886 - 1968
Johann Jakob Wettstein
1693 - 1754
Eduard Schweizer
1913 - 2006
Johannes Buxtorf II
1599 - 1664
Samuel Werenfels
1657 - 1740
Alfred Bertholet
1868 - 1951
Lukas Vischer (theologian)
1926 - 2008
Johannes Wolleb
1589 - 1629
Markus Lutz
1772 - 1835
Friedrich Seyler
1642 - 1708
Jacob Christoph Iselin
1681 - 1737
Carl Albrecht Bernoulli
1868 - 1937
Johannes Jakob Buxtorf
1645 - 1705
Theodor Zwinger (pasteur)
1597 - 1654
Johann Zwinger
1634 - 1696
Jacob Strauß
1480 - 1533
Dietrich Ritschl
1929 - 2018
Heinrich Ott (Theologe)
1929 - 2013
Beatrice Rohner
1876 - 1947
Arthur F. Utz
1908 - 2001
Ludwig Bär (Theologe)
1479 - 1554
Beat Dietschy
Born 1950
Rudolf Liechtenhan der Ältere
1875 - 1947
Samuel Heiland
1533 - 1592
Jakob Burckhardt der Ältere
1785 - 1858
Walter Neidhart
1917 - 2001
Johann Buxtorf (Orientalist)
1663 - 1732