France–Germany border

International border France–Germany borderView of Offenburg looking west, with the Vosges (Mont Donon) in the backgroundCharacteristicsEntities France GermanyLength450 km (280 mi) The international border between the modern states of France and Germany has a length of 450 km (280 mi). The southern portion of the border, between Saint-Louis at the border with Switzerland and Lauterbourg, follows the River Rhine (Upper Rhine) in a south-to-north direction through the Upper Rhine Plain. The border then turns westward until it reaches the tripoint between France, Germany and Luxembourg. History The Franco-German border can be traced back to the 17th century, and the various treaties following the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), starting with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678–1679), marking the Rhine as the frontier between the Kingdom of France, and the different German states. The actual border was determined in the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The border then changed after the French defeat during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), where the French Third Republic was forced to yield Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire in 1871. The territory