City of Basel

Switzerland (Suisse)

Tuesday 1st July 2014

Basel is Switzerland's third most populous city (behind Zürich and Geneva) with about 195,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany. In 2011, the Basel agglomeration was the third largest in Switzerland with a population of 500,600 in 74 municipalities in Switzerland and an additional 53 in neighbouring countries (municipal count as of 2000). The tri-national metropolitan area has around 830,000 inhabitants in 226 municipalities. Located in north west Switzerland on the river Rhine, Basel functions as a major industrial centre for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. The Basel region, culturally extending into German Baden-Württemberg and French Alsace, reflects the heritage of its three states in the modern Latin name: "Regio Tri Rhena". It has the oldest university of the Swiss Confederation (1460). Basel is German-speaking. The local variant of the Swiss German dialects is called Basel German.