Jungholz
An Austrian village in the Allgäu that touches the rest of Austria only at one point, the summit of a mountain. Every road in comes from Germany, and from 1868 it was part of Bavaria’s customs area, with German postcodes and phone numbers for decades.
Written from cited sourcesLast checked 2 October 2026Suggest a correction
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A village that hangs by a point
Jungholz belongs to the Austrian state of Tyrol, but it lies in the Allgäu, and the only roads to it, two of them, come from Bavaria.[3] It is joined to the rest of Austria only over the summit of the Sorgschrofen, and boundary stones every few metres mark where the Austrian enclave meets Bavaria.[2]
Its people live with Germany close by. For a long time Jungholz had a German postcode and dialling code, and many residents commute to Bavaria every day.[3]
Bavarian customs
Austria’s emperor Franz Joseph and the king of Bavaria agreed that it should be joined to the Bavarian system of customs and indirect taxes. The treaty, with 16 articles and three annexes, was signed in Vienna on 3 May 1868 and ratified that June.[1]
Because of where they lie, Jungholz and Mittelberg, another Austrian area next to Germany, have been inside the European customs territory ever since it was set up, long before Austria joined the European Union in 1995.[4]
“daß die zur Grafschaft Tirol gehörige Gemeinde Jungholz dem bayerischen Zoll- und indirecten Steuersysteme angeschlossen werde”[1]
Today
In 2025 the village’s small ski area, its lifts serving gentle family slopes, was put up for sale, and locals worried about what that would mean for a place where tourism is part of the identity.[3]
Timeline
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Sources
- [1]Vertrag vom 3. Mai 1868 … über den Anschluß der zur Grafschaft Tirol gehörigen Gemeinde Jungholz an das bayerische Zoll- und indirecte Steuersystem (RGBl. Nr. 78/1868) · Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes (RIS), Austria · 3 May 1868
In German.
- [2]
- [3]Österreich oder Deutschland? Dieses Dorf passt in keine Schublade · VOL.AT · 12 September 2025
In German.
- [4]The Status of the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus Following Brexit · Nasia Hadjigeorgiou and Nikos Skoutaris, PRIO Cyprus Centre · 2019
Section 5 compares Jungholz and Mittelberg.
- [5]Jungholz (relation 37848) and Schattwald (relation 37847) · OpenStreetMap contributors
The municipal outlines on the map.
Map geometry from Natural Earth via world-atlas. See credits.