>>>You didn't say "a historic city" but "the historic city"... i.e. the one.
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>If I say "the People's Republic of China," that doesn't mean that China is the only People's Republic. "The" refers to the whole element, not just the first part. IOW "the (historic city of Basel)" not "(the historic city) of Basel."

The definite article sounds superfluous in this case, as there is only one PRC. To differ from personal names - someone may rightfully ask "the John Ryan?" if there may be several and he wants to know whether it is the one that's the most famous.

Republic has its origins in "res publica" which was followed with a genitive case "...Romanorum", i.e. of Romans. So the Romans (the people!) had a republic, i.e. their country WAS a republic (except when it was an empire with an emperor/caesar/czar). It didn't have a republic, the people did.

And, ah, the english implied parentheses, I assume them the wrong way most of the time. Why is electric pencil sharpener exactly "electric (pencil sharpener)" and not "(electric pencil) sharpener"? Probably because electric pencils must be dull all the time... Still I'd rather see adjectives audibly/visibly different from nouns, and then the parentheses wouldn't be necessary at all.

>>>By the way, does Basel have anything else but its city? How is the rest called if there's the city of it?
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>Technically the agglomeration of Basel extends into France and Germany so yes, it does have more than just the Swiss city. But I get your point: yes, more English language quaintness. ;-)

I'm thinking of phonetics today. The verbs ending with -ic, like frolic and panic. When you add -ing to them, you actually do it royally. You add a -king (frolicking, panicking); ditto for -ed which somehow becomes -ked. Why not frolicing, panicing? That would be more in the tradition of the language: yet another exception to remember.