Basel is a city in the north of Switzerland, on the River Rhine. In that northern part of the country it is a really big city — though actually Zurich, also in the north, is larger still. If you count the whole country, Geneva is larger than Basel too, so people often call Basel Switzerland’s third city. It sits right where Switzerland meets France and Germany, so it feels like a border town. Most people there speak German (in the Swiss-German way); the French name is Bâle. The city is known for art and for medicines, and bankers say Basel when they mean a set of world bank-safety rules written there. For a learner, the word on its own is just the name of the place.