BASEL-LANDSCHAFT
- Apr 2
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 9
Basel-Landschaft is the green canton surrounding the city of Basel: untouched nature, hills, villages and landscapes where villagers once decided they should have their own history.
BASEL-LANDSCHAFT: ICONIC LANDMARKS
Hills, vineyards and old villages create a gentle landscape around the big city.
Basel-Landschaft , or "Rural Basel," surrounds the city of Basel with a ring of hills and valleys. Here, industrial settlements suddenly give way to quiet villages, and around a bend in the road, a medieval castle perched on a ridge might appear.
The landscape's contours are gently undulating, almost pastoral. The ruins of castles on the peaks are a reminder that history here, too, was dramatic.
Among the most striking sites are the ruins of Augusta Raurica , where the remains of a Roman city with a theater and straight streets remain. The stone steps of the amphitheater are a reminder that this part of Switzerland was once a deep province of the Roman Empire.
A different character of the region is revealed at Wildenstein Castle , a rare example of a fortress largely untouched by later reconstruction. Despite intense industrialization and urbanization, the canton has retained rich and diverse traditions. Locals enthusiastically observe them and are happy to share these festivals and customs with anyone interested. The most vibrant of these is the Fasnacht carnival , held annually in February or March.
Basel-Landschaft is perceived as a transition zone between the city and the countryside, where history is not concentrated in one center, but is evenly scattered across the valleys and hills.
BASEL-LANDSCHAFT: COAT OF ARMS' HISTORY
After the division of the canton, the rural area received its own symbols and identity.
The historic canton of Basel joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501. Its symbol became the bishop's crosier — a sign of spiritual authority and secular influence. For over three hundred years, the city and the surrounding lands existed within a single political entity. But tensions gradually grew within this union, which in the 19th century erupted into open conflict.
By the early 19th century, tensions between Basel, the city, and the rural areas had become chronic. The issues were classic and thorny: taxes, representation, and influence over governance. The village believed it provided for the city, while the city believed it ensured order and development.
Following the revolutionary upheavals of the 1830s, tensions erupted into armed clashes. In 1833, the conflict culminated in the official division of the canton into two half-cantons — Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. For Switzerland, this was a rare case of an internal schism enshrined at the constitutional level.
Thus a unique administrative formula emerged: one historical canton, two political entities. Neither the city nor the village abandoned their shared historical symbol — the Basel crozier.
In 1834, the new half-canton needed its own coat of arms. The coat of arms of Liestal, the capital of the rural district, served as a basis. A red Basel crozier was placed on a silver field, but with an important detail: its top was turned the heraldic way — to the left, as if pointedly facing away from the city.
The top of the crozier is decorated with seven balls — "siebedupf" in the local dialect. Their number became firmly established by the 18th century, although it had previously varied. One beautiful version connects the seven protrusions to the seven days of creation —a hint that even the world was created with a pause for rest. The crozier itself is a stylized bishop's crosier, known from coins and seals as early as the 12th century. Liestal used it on the city seal from the 14th century, and after the division, it was this version that became the basis for the cantonal symbol.
From 1833 to 1999, a unified coat of arms existed, with both versions of the crozier — the urban black and the rural red — placed side by side on a single shield. Formally, the half-cantons were separate, but symbolically they recognized their common origin.
Even after the abolition of the term "half-canton" in 1999, both cantons retained their versions of the crozier — as a reminder that division does not negate their shared history.
The Basel Staff has survived bishops, revolutions, wars, and administrative reforms. It has changed direction, shape, and the number of protrusions — but it has remained the same symbol of power and identity. Sometimes coats of arms tell more than chronicles : one can separate, turn one's back, but one cannot completely erase a shared past. The Staff knows this well.
BASEL-LANDSCHAFT: FUN FACTS
Of the children's associations and unusual representatives of fauna.
In my distant childhood, when I was about six years old, during the "heyday of USSR stagnation," I mysteriously received a huge pencil — almost half a meter long — emblazoned with the coats of arms of the Swiss cantons . Where it came from in my Soviet apartment remains a mystery. Among the crosses, lions, and keys, Basel stood out in particular. Its curved staff with its curl and "spikes" I firmly mistook for a squid. A real one, with tentacles. And I was certain that since the squid was on the coat of arms, the country was truly fantastical, almost cosmic. Switzerland then seemed as unattainable as a distant planet home to exotic seafood.
But in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, in the commune of Itingen in the district of Sissach, they went even further — their coat of arms features a "winged fish." A creature as logical as my childhood squid. Perhaps a nod to flying fish, perhaps a nod to literature. It's reminiscent of an episode from Jaroslav Hašek's "Švejk," where one zealous cadet insisted that his ancestors' coat of arms featured "a stork's wing with a fish's tail," earning him the appropriate nickname. In Itingen, however, no one makes fun of the coat of arms: heraldry favors fantasy. Sometimes water isn't enough for a fish — it also needs wings.
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