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Büsingen and Campione d’Italia

Two villages surrounded by Switzerland that belong to other countries: German Büsingen on the Rhine and Italian Campione on Lake Lugano. Büsingen has been inside the Swiss customs area since 1967 and runs on Swiss francs. Campione did the same until 2020, when it switched to the EU’s customs area.

Written from cited sourcesLast checked 30 September 2026Suggest a correction

GERMANYSWITZERLANDITALYBüsingenCampione d’Italia
Büsingen (Germany) Campione d’Italia (Italy)Büsingen, on the Rhine by Schaffhausen, and Campione, on Lake Lugano, from OpenStreetMap. Both are too small to see at this scale and are marked with dots.

See it on the globe:Germany →Switzerland →Italy →

Büsingen: sold around

Büsingen lies on the Rhine less than 4 km east of Schaffhausen. In 1770 the Habsburgs sold the neighbouring village of Dörflingen to Zurich, and Büsingen found itself surrounded by Swiss land. It later passed to Baden, and today it is in Baden-Württemberg.[1]

In 1918, 96 percent of its voters asked to join Switzerland, which considered the request and said no. In 1956 Germany asked for a corridor across the 500 metres of Swiss land that separate it from the rest of Germany, but Switzerland could not find German land to take in exchange.[1]

A 1964 treaty, in force since 1967, put Büsingen inside Swiss customs. It pays Swiss VAT, most of its workers earn Swiss francs, and shops take francs though the official currency is the euro. Its post office has both a Swiss and a German postcode, its cars carry their own BÜS plates, and FC Büsingen is the only German club in the Swiss league.[1]

Campione: a monastery’s village

In a will dated 8 March 777, Totone, lord of Campione, left his lands to the archbishop of Milan, who gave the village as a fief to the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio. The monks ruled it for about a thousand years.[2] When the Swiss took Ticino from Lombardy in 1516, Campione’s status as a church fief kept it out of their hands.[2]

The fief ended in February 1797, when French troops landed and Campione was incorporated into the Cisalpine Republic, a new state in Lombardy. Switzerland asked for Campione in 1800, 1814 and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, without success, and the village became part of Italy when the kingdom was formed.[2] The name Campione d’Italia dates from a royal decree of 18 December 1933.[2]

Its casino opened in 1917, closed after two years, and restarted for good in 1933.[4] Campione used Swiss customs and Ticino car plates, and it still has a Ticino phone code. On 1 January 2020 it left the Swiss customs area for the EU’s, to the disappointment of many locals, and cars are now registered in Como.[1] The casino went bankrupt in July 2018, putting almost 500 people out of work, and reopened on 26 January 2022 with 174 staff.[4]

Timeline

  1. 7778 March 777

    Totone’s will

    Campione passes to the church of Milan and the monks of Sant’Ambrogio.[2]

  2. 1516

    Swiss take Ticino

    Campione, a church fief, stays outside.[2]

  3. 1770

    Büsingen cut off

    Dörflingen is sold to Zurich, leaving Büsingen surrounded.[1]

  4. 1797

    Fief abolished

    French troops arrive and Campione joins the Cisalpine Republic.[2]

  5. 1918

    Büsingen votes Swiss

    96 percent back joining Switzerland, which declines.[1]

  6. 193318 December 1933

    “Campione d’Italia”

    A royal decree gives the village its current name.[2]

  7. 1967

    Swiss customs

    Büsingen joins the Swiss customs area.[1]

  8. 20201 January 2020

    Campione joins EU customs

    Campione leaves the Swiss customs area.[1]

More map oddities

Sources

  1. [1]
  2. [2]
    Storia · Comune di Campione d’Italia

    The town’s official history, in Italian.

  3. [3]
    A Theory of Enclaves, chapter 2 (table 2.3, true enclaves) · Evgeny Vinokurov, Lexington Books (MPRA Paper No. 20936) · 2007
  4. [4]
  5. [5]

Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.

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