City Center Basel

Basel is the third-biggest city in Switzerland, with a native population of 165,529 inhabitants. Situated along the Rhine River near the German and French borders, the city is Switzerland's biggest center of industry and trade. Additionally, Basel's proximity to Germany and France gives the city a cosmopolitan atmosphere that has attracted considerable writers and intellectuals from all over Europe. Since the middle ages, a considerable number of treaties and agreements involving other European nations have been signed in Basel. The city has preserved so many of its historical buildings that in 1996 it received the Swiss Heritage Society's Wakker Prize for the conservation of historically significant architecture.