The Burckhardt family alternatively also (de) Bourcard (in French) is a family of the Basel patriciate, descended from Christoph (Stoffel) Burckhardt (1490–1578), a merchant in cloth and silk originally from Münstertal, Black Forest, who received Basel citizenship in 1523, and became a member of the Grand Council of Basel-Stadt in 1553.

[1] Branches of the family were based in Nantes and in the Kingdom of Naples from the 18th century, where it was ennobled as de Bourcard.

The surname is derived from the dithematic Germanic given name Burkhard, from burg "protection" and hard "brave, hardy".

In the 17th and 18th century, the Burckhardts intermarried with the other leading families of the Basel patriciate (Iselin, Merian, Sarasin, Staehelin, Vischer, Von der Mühll,[3] Wettstein).

Bernhard was elected to the great chamber of the city council in 1603, where the family remained present until 1878.