Daig (Switzerland)

Daig (/daɪɡ/) is an expression common in Basel and the rest of German-speaking Switzerland and refers to a milieu consisting of wealthy families from the Swiss city of Basel.

These primarily Protestant families had full civic rights in the then city-state since the High Middle Ages and are known for their particular idiosyncratic habits and a dialect distinct from that of the rest of the population. For centuries the Daig was the social, political and economic elite of Basel, becoming a quasi city arisocracy, although always remaining judicialy part of the bourgeois class.