Allschwil

Allschwil is a municipality of about 21,400 inhabitants in the district of Arlesheim in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland. It is a seamless suburb of Basel, lying between Basel to the east and the French region of Alsace to the west. The modern municipality is first mentioned in 1118 as Almswilre, but the region has been occupied since at least the Middle Paleolithic, and a Gallo-Roman cremation cemetery of about AD 25 to 60 found in 1937 is one of the oldest in northern Switzerland. Allschwil belonged to the lordship of Birseck, given to the Bishop of Basel in 1004, and its position on the border and on the trade route between Alsace and Solothurn made it an important customs station. The village adopted the Protestant Reformation in 1529, was brought back to the Catholic faith by the bishop in 1627, and had a Jewish settlement from 1567.