Lauterbourg

Château épiscopal de Lauterbourg is a monumental building in the town of Lauterbourg, in the department of Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. It was built at the end of the 16th century, and served as a residence of the bishop of Speyer. It is a listed historical monument since 1932.

Lauterbourg station (French: Gare de Lauterbourg) is a railway station in the town of Lauterbourg in the département of Bas-Rhin in the French region of Grand Est. It is on the SNCF and the TER Grand Est networks and is served by regional express trains. As a border station, it is also served by Deutsche Bahn trains.

Berg is a municipality in the district of Germersheim, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the border with France. The Ortsteil Neulauterburg, 2 km west of the centre of Berg, is contiguous with the French town Lauterbourg, across the small river Lauter. Berg has a railway station on the regional line from Wörth am Rhein to Lauterbourg.

Scheibenhard (French pronunciation: [ʃaibənaʁt]) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in northeastern France. It lies on the German border, continuous with the German village of Scheibenhardt, separated only by a small creek, the Lauter. This creek became the border due to the Vienna Congress of 1815, but from 1870 to 1918 and 1940 till 1945 both sides were annexed by the German Empire/Nazi Germany. The village is situated near the northeastern corner of France.

Scheibenhardt (German pronunciation: [ˈʃaɪ̯bn̩ˌhaʁt]) is a German municipality located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2004 it had 714 inhabitants. Situated on the border with Alsace, it is continuous with the French village of Scheibenhard, separated only by a small creek called the Lauter.

Mothern (French pronunciation: [motɛʁn]) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France.

Neewiller-près-Lauterbourg (French pronunciation: [nevilɛʁ pʁɛ lotɛʁbuʁ], literally Neewiller near Lauterbourg; German: Nehweiler) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.

Elchesheim-Illingen is a village in southwestern Germany, located between Karlsruhe and Rastatt. The Rhine flows 5 km west of the village.

The Upper Rhine Plain, Rhine Rift Valley or Upper Rhine Graben (German: Oberrheinische Tiefebene, Oberrheinisches Tiefland or Oberrheingraben, French: Vallée du Rhin) is a major rift, about 350-kilometre-long (220 mi) and on average 50-kilometre-wide (31 mi), between Basel in the south and the cities of Frankfurt/Wiesbaden in the north. Its southern section straddles the France–Germany border. It forms part of the European Cenozoic Rift System, which extends across Central Europe. The Upper Rhine Graben formed during the Oligocene, as a response to the evolution of the Alps to the south. It remains active to the present day. Today, the Rhine Rift Valley forms a downfaulted trough through which the river Rhine flows.

Munchhausen (French pronunciation: [mynʃauzən] or [mynçauzən]; German: Münchhausen) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It lies at the outflow of the Sauer into the Rhine.

The Bienwald is a large forested area in the southern Pfalz region of Germany near the towns of Kandel and Wörth am Rhein. The western edge defines the eastern extent of the Wissembourg Gap, a corridor of open terrain between the Bienwald and the hills of the Palatine Forest. In the northwest, the forest is bounded by the so-called "Cattle Line" (German: Viehstrich), running from Schweighofen to Kandel. In the north, the forest reaches as far as Hatzenbühl and Rheinzabern. The eastern boundary largely runs along the bank of the Rhine from Jockgrim to Hagenbach and Berg (Pfalz). The southern boundary follows the valley of the Lauter along the border of France and Germany. The bulk of the forest belongs to the municipality of Wörth am Rhein. At its greatest extent, the Bienwald is approximately 17 kilometres (11 mi) wide along its east–west axis and 11 km (6.8 mi) from north to south. The forest has an area of some 163 km2 (63 sq mi). Approximately one-third of the forest is deciduous woodland with the remainder coniferous. The forest has an elevation of 100 metres (330 ft) above sea level by the Rhine, and rises to 150 m (490 ft) above sea level in its western extremities. The only settlement in the Bienwald is Büchelberg (940 inhabitants as of 2015), which lies inside a clearing in the forest and is administratively part of the town of Wörth am Rhein. On 13 August 1793, a battle of the War of the First Coalition took place in the Bienwald. Austrian troops under Marshal Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser pushed the French Army back and frustrated the relief of Mainz. In March 1945, during World War II, the U.S. VI Corps and the French First Army assaulted German Siegfried Line fortifications in the Bienwald and penetrated German defenses in the forest during a week of heavy combat. The forest is still marked by trenches and bunker ruins from World War II. There are also older French earthworks (redoutes) in the southwestern parts of the forest where it borders the Lauter river and Mundat Forest (French: Forêt du Mundat). The proposed construction of a multi-lane controlled access highway through the forest is disputed. The proposed road would connect the French A35 autoroute and the German A65 autobahn. European wildcats have taken up residence in the Bienwald in the last few years, often using the ruins of destroyed bunkers for shelter.

The Sauer is a river in France (Alsace) and Germany (Rhineland-Palatinate). A left tributary of the river Rhine, its total length is about 85 kilometres (53 mi), of which 64 km (40 mi) in France. Its upper course, in Germany, is called Saarbach. Its source is in the Palatinate forest, near the French border, south of Pirmasens. It flows into France near Schœnau, and continues through Wœrth and north of Haguenau. It flows into the Rhine in Seltz, opposite the mouth of the Murg.