Germany–Luxembourg border
A river border with a twist: where the Moselle, Sauer and Our separate Germany and Luxembourg, the rivers belong to both countries at once, under a treaty from 1816. At its southern end lies Schengen, where the agreement that opened Europe’s borders was signed on a boat in 1985.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 29 September 2026Suggest a correction
See it on the globe:Germany →Luxembourg →
Rivers held in common
The Vienna Final Act made Luxembourg a grand duchy in personal union with the Netherlands in 1815, with Prussia on its eastern side. The border treaty signed at Aachen on 26 June 1816 declared that wherever streams and rivers form the border, they belong to both states jointly. That still holds: where the Moselle, the Sauer and the Our separate Germany and Luxembourg, the rivers are a condominium, shared territory of both countries, rather than being split down the middle.[1]
On the Moselle this shared stretch runs for about 36.5 km, from the mouth of the Sauer down to Perl, Apach and Schengen, and includes locks, weirs and fish ladders. A 1984 treaty defined its edges as the line where the water meets the land at mean water level.[1]
“Wherever streams, rivers and rivulets form borders, they shall belong to both states jointly”[1]
Schengen
On 14 June 1985 representatives of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed the Schengen Agreement aboard the MS Princesse Marie-Astrid, moored on the Moselle at the Luxembourg village of Schengen. The ship was later sold to Germany, bought back by Schengen in 2021 and returned in 2025 as part of the village’s museum.[2] Schengen lies by the point where Germany, France and Luxembourg meet.[1]
Timeline
More borders
Germany
Sources
- [1]The three-country point · Saarschleifenland Tourismus (Perl)
- [2]Schengen: 40 years of European history on a ship · The official portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg · 2025
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.