The location of the First Zionist Congress was to have been Munich, Germany, but due to the opposition of the community and the Protestrabbiner, it was transferred to Basle and held on Aug. 29–31, 1897. The historical importance of the Congress lies in the formulation of the Basle Program and the foundation of the Zionist Organization, which united West and East European Zionists in both an organizational and programmatic sense. Up until that time the East European Hovevei Zion engaged in settlement activities in Erez Israel, and they now accepted political Zionism as well. The approach termed political Zionism, an essential problem debated at the Congress, was raised and defined by Herzl himself. The settlements founded to date had indeed proved the ability of the Jews to farm the land. The Jewish problem, however, could only be solved by large-scale migration and settlement of the country, which could be effected only with international assistance and recognition. By the Third Congress this was expressed in the term "charter." The means and goals of political Zionism were formulated in a key sentence, possessing four subclauses, the Basle Program.

The First Congress also devised a schedule that was followed by all subsequent Congresses: reports on the situation of Jewish communities in the Diaspora (at the first Congresses, the famous speeches of Max Nordau), lectures on Erez Israel and settlement activities, and debates on cultural questions, which were extremely stormy at the first few Congresses. Herzl acted as the chairman of the Congress (as he did at all Congresses until his death) and was also elected president of the Zionist Organization. The Congress made a tremendous impression on both Jews and non-Jews throughout the world. Herzl himself summarized the importance of the First Congress thus: "I no longer need to write the history of yesterday [the day on which the Congress opened]; it is already written by others.... Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word—which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly—it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State" (Herzl's diary, Aug. 30, Sept. 3, 1897, Complete Diaries, ed. by R. Patai, 2, 580–1). Hayyim Nahman Bialik even published a poem entitled "Mikra'ei Ziyyon" in honor of the First Congress (for English translations see Goell, Bibliography, 489–90, no. 237). A full list of the participants in the First Congress with biographical and bibliographical details was compiled by H. Orlan in Herzl Year Book, 6 (1964–65), 133–52. The official language of the first Congresses was German (the minutes were published in this language until the beginning of the 1930s and after that in English). The language spoke from the rostrum was, for many years, also mostly German, but since many delegates spoke a kind of Yiddishized German it was nicknamed "Kongressdeutsch."