Living in Kleinbasel — Basel neighbourhood
Kleinbasel was an independent town with its own jurisdiction until 1392, when it was sold to Grossbasel for 29,800 guilders and merged into one city. Older still than this union is the Vogel Gryff: first documented in 1304, to this day the three Kleinbasel honorary societies — Wild Maa, Leu and Vogel Gryff — dance on a January day on the Mittlere Rheinbrücke, while the Wild Maa drifts downstream on a raft. According to legend, the Lällekönig on the Grossbasel side still cheekily sticks his tongue out at the people of Kleinbasel — though historians consider the story a myth. The right bank of the Rhine bend today is defined by contrast: the Roche Tower 2 stands 205 metres tall, the tallest building in Switzerland, while Klybeck and Kleinhüningen offer some of the most affordable rents in the canton. The Kleinhüningen Rhine harbour, in operation since 1922, is Switzerland's only sea-connected, globally networked port and handles around 10% of all Swiss imports. The Markthalle, built in 1929, once bore the third-largest reinforced-concrete dome in the world and today serves as a market and event hall. The Badischer Bahnhof, a German railway station on Swiss soil, connects directly to Freiburg and Karlsruhe. The Rhine promenade, Claraplatz and the Museum Tinguely (Mario Botta) are popular meeting points, and the Klybeck site is being transformed into a new 300,000 m² district.
| Population | 56'339 |
| To Basel SBB station (min) | 17 |
| To Marktplatz (min) | 5 |
| To Messeplatz (min) | 2 |
| Green space | 25% |
| Avg. age | 41.1 |
Across the Rhine, Kleinbasel has its own distinct character: older than the union with Grossbasel itself, more affordable in rent, and with Switzerland's tallest building on the skyline. 18 minutes to Novartis by bike.
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