Basel - the city of Swiss centenarians

New statistics show that canton Basel City is the Swiss region with the most 100-year-olds. A portrait of 101-year-old Edith Hug. Switzerland’s population is ageing rapidly. Since 1950, the number of centenarians has nearly doubled every decade, and since 2018, around 100 centenarians have been added every year. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the Swiss cantons with the highest proportion of people over 100 are in the north and south of the country, namely cantons Ticino and Basel City. Edith Hug, from Basel, was born in 1923. “I never thought I’d live this long, but now I have, and it’s a wonderful gift,” she says. Her living room is full of photographs. One of them is a black-and-white picture of two small girls in dresses: Edith and her sister. She was about six years old at the time, she recalls. The picture was taken in 1929 just ten years before World War Two erupted. The retired hairdresser has fond memories of the past but believes many things are better ...