Rivers as national borders Pt 10: Benelux

I avoided exploring this part of the world cos I was like I already know it, I’m British, I’ve been round Europe, I know the area.

But actually i just know the countries themselves, the cities and main geography and lots of the history. I don’t know anything abour the borders, particularly the river borders and it turns out there’s lots of cool stuff to explore, so let’s get into it.

Let’s start northwest with the Netherland/Germany border. Starting in the North Sea, travelling southNothing much down here until the Rhine defines a tiny little section of the border

Let’s see it zoomed out

The blue bit is the Rhine border

Actually having a closer look I was wrong, the Netherlands has a few river borders, or mre precisely canal borders. I momentarily dismissed them due to the straight lines but several canals and streams form bits of the Netherland/Germany border.

There’s lots of little sections, most are little rivers and canals, not worth going into detail.

Basically Dark blue is the Rhine Green border is the Meuse river

Belgium’s pretty much the same only fewer river but my eyes hurt through all this zooming in and out and cybersickness is rearing its head. There are no interesting, long river borders here. Plus I want to get to Luxembourg and other countries.

Luxembourg is where it gets interesting.

So the very last bit of the Belgium/Germany border is defined by the Our river. This leads to the tripoint with Luxembourg at a river confluence with the Reibaach river, with all three river borders! Yay! Coordinates 50.129867, 6.137750

The Our goes on to define the Luxembourg/Germany border, carrying it around two-thirds of the way down, with a tiny break where the border goes around the Chateau Vianden (very Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hilltop castle vibes, although not the one used in the film). The border follows the Our all the way down to its confluence with the River Moselle which defines the rest of the border down to the tripoint with France at coordinates 49.469393, 6.367689.

The light blue is the Our river, the dark blue is the Moselle and the medium blue is the Reibaach. The two red dots are the tripoints.

Oh no I was wrong, the Our doesn’t flow straight into the Moselle, another river connects the two. The Our meets the Sauer river near Wallendorf — coordinates (49.875132, 6.287118) This is actually cooler cos the Our is a tributary of the Sauer, which in turn is a tributary of the Moselle. And they each define about one third of the Lux/German border each which is cool.

And it gets better. The Sauer river crosses right across Luxembourg and defines a section of the border on both sides of the country. Very cool, check it out

Going from coordinates (49.833632, 5.739209) in the south to (49.875694, 5.782656) in the north

Like the Belgium/Netherlands border the Lux/Belgium border is a mess of a lots of tiny rivers and canals and waterways, not worth mentioning.

This is why it’s so much to map out with paper and pen, ugh it’s irritating.

I’m persevering.

So the purple line is the Sauer river on both sides of Luxembourg, the dark blue is the Moselle, the light blue is Our.

And on the Lux/France border I spy a couple of rivers. The pink is the Gander, The brown is the Reierbach/Cross. The two yellow bits are the Eisch river. The red dots are the tripoints.

And at the tripoint with Belgium I spy with my little eye something beginning with three river borders!

So the Luxembourg border is defined by La Chiers, and the Belgium/France border is defined by a little waterway, may only be a little one for a few hundred metres up to the tripoint but I’m counting it :)

Okay I wanted to do way more today but I think that’s enough for now. I’ve done all of Benelux which ties up quite nicely.

Next time Germany and Switzerland and wherever else I find myself.

Map nerd for the win.