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| France–Germany border | |
|---|---|
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| Characteristics | |
| Entities |  France Germany |
| Length | 450 km (280 mi) |
Theinternational border between the modern states ofFrance andGermany has a length of 450 km (280 mi). The southern portion of the border, betweenSaint-Louis at the border withSwitzerland andLauterbourg, follows the RiverRhine (Upper Rhine) in a south-to-north direction through theUpper Rhine Plain. The border then turns westward until it reaches thetripoint between France, Germany andLuxembourg.
The Franco-German border can be traced back to the 17th century, and the various treaties following theThirty Years' War (1618–1648), starting with theTreaty of Westphalia (1648) and theTreaty of Nijmegen (1678–1679), marking theRhine as the frontier between theKingdom of France, and the different German states. The actual border was determined in theCongress of Vienna in 1815. The border then changed after the French defeat during theFranco-Prussian War (1870-1871), where theFrench Third Republic was forced to yieldAlsace-Lorraine to the newGerman Empire in 1871. The territory was then returned to France 48 years later after theTreaty of Versailles in 1919. The border changed again in 1941 whenNazi Germanyde facto annexed the region (without international legal recognition, or treaty). The current border was re-established after the defeat of Nazi Germany inWorld War II.
In 2019, German authorities instituted extended border checks. These checks resulted in 178 people who had been banned from entering Germany being denied entry. 1,177 people on the wanted list were arrested, there were 1,235 breaches of residency laws, 406 breaches against narcotics laws, 205 breaches of weapons laws, 47 cases of falsified documents, and 19 people with extremist backgrounds were hindered from entering Germany. Most of these were along the borders to France and Austria.[1]
The border follows theUpper Rhine from the tripoint (Dreiländereck) with theFrench-Swiss and theGerman-Swiss borders atBasel (47°35′24″N7°35′20″E / 47.590°N 7.589°E /47.590; 7.589), passing betweenStrasbourg andOffenburg. The Rhine forms the eastern border ofAlsace on the French side and the western border ofBaden-Württemberg on the German side.
Upstream ofKarlsruhe (48°58′01″N8°14′02″E / 48.967°N 8.234°E /48.967; 8.234), the border leaves the Rhine, cutting westward to forming the northern border ofAlsace andLorraine on the French side, and the southern border ofRhineland-Palatinate andSaarland on the German side. It passesSaarbrücken,Petite-Rosselle,Freyming-Merlebach,Creutzwald (where it follows theBist for a short stretch),Überherrn, and meets theE29 before it terminates at the French-Luxembourgish-German tripoint on theMoselle, near the village ofSchengen, Luxembourg (49°27′36″N6°22′08″E / 49.460°N 6.369°E /49.460; 6.369; chosen as the symbolic site for the signing of theSchengen Agreement between France, Germany, and the Benelux countries in 1985).
