Basel (Fr. Bâle; older Fr. Basle), a city and canton of Switzerland. The canton was divided in 1833 into two independent half-cantons, called Basel-city and Basel-country. The urban half-canton consists only of the city, with its precincts, and three villages on the right bank of the Rhine; the remainder forms the half-canton of Basel-country. The canton of Basel borders on Alsace-Lorraine and Baden, and has an area of 177 sq. m.—but little larger than the county of Rutland. Lying on the northern slope of the Jura, it is a country of hills and valleys. The mountains attain an elevation of over 3400 feet. The chief rivers of Basel are the Rhine and its tributaries, the Birz and Ergloz. The soil is fertile and well cultivated. The climate, except in elevated situations, is very mild. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in agriculture, the cultivation of fruit-trees and of the vine, cattle-husbandry, fishing, salt-works, the manufacture of ribbons (to the value of almost £2,000,000 annually), woollens, lineus, and leather.
The city of Basel arose out of a Roman fortified post, known as Basilia after an imperial visit in 374. From an early period it was the seat of a bishop, and in the beginning of the 10th century the Emperor Henry I. rebuilt the town, which then became a place of importance, and after 1032 formed part of the German empire. The centuries that follow are marked by a steady extension of the authority of the burghers, whose repeated efforts to break the power of the bishop and the nobles fill up the history of the period. Involved in many feuds with the House of Hapsburg, Basel formally joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1501. From 1519 onwards, Luther's writings were printed here; and at the end of twenty years from that time, the reformed doctrine had become generally prevalent. After the union with Switzerland, the triumph of the burgher party became also more complete; but the peace of the city was often disturbed by strife caused by the assertion of undue authority by the magistrates. All parties in the city, however, combined against the country district; and persons belonging to the city were appointed to all offices, civil and ecclesiastical. Under the impulse communicated by the French Revolution, equality of rights was conceded in 1798; but in 1814 the new constitution made the city again supreme. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain redress of grievances by petition, civil war broke out in 1831, which did not cease till the troops of the Swiss Confederation took possession of the canton, and the diet recognised the separation of the city and the country district in 1833. The constitutions of the two half-cantons are in most respects similar, and are framed on the basis of the old constitution, modified in accordance with the principle of universal suffrage. In 1898 the half-canton of Basel-city contained 101,250 inhabitants, and Basel-country, 65,257—in both cases more than two-thirds being Protestants. The capital of Basel-country is Liestal. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy are paid by the state, and the parishes of the Reformed Church choose their own pastors.
The city of Basel was relatively much more important in the middle ages than now; and this though its population has grown from 29,555 in 1850 to 75,114 in 1893, and though in proportion to its population it is one of the wealthiest cities of Europe. In the 14th century, the number of its inhabitants was greatly reduced by the plague, or 'Black Death' (q.v.), which raged in it with terrible severity, and is sometimes mentioned as the 'death of Basel.' The town is well built and clean, but its appearance does not proclaim it the wealthiest city in Switzerland, as it is. The Rhine, here spanned by three bridges, 200 yards long, divides the city into two parts—Great Basel on the south side, and Little Basel on the north. The minster, a cathedral till 1528, was founded by the Emperor Henry II. in 1010, but not completed till 1500. It was restored in 1852–56, and has two conspicuous towers, 218 feet high. Other buildings are the town-hall (1508); the university, founded in 1460; a museum, in which there are thirty-two pictures by the younger Holbein, who lived thirteen years in Basel, though a native he was not; and a public university library of 160,000 volumes and 4000 manuscripts. During the Reformation, the university was a central point of spiritual life, and it has numbered among its professors men of great eminence in learning and science, including Erasmus and Ecolampadius, both of whom died here, and the mathematicians Euler and Bernoulli, who were natives of Basel. It has now some 70 professors and lecturers, and about 300 students.—At Basel was concluded on 5th April and 22d July 1795 a treaty between the French Republic, Prussia, and Spain, Prussia withdrawing from the coalition against France.