Visit Alsace Rhin Brisach

The Rhine, 1 300 km long, is a legendary river that has shaped the history of the lands that border it. It rises at Lake Constance in Switzerland to flow into the North Sea at Hoek van Holland in the Netherlands.

Its waters have seen Celts, Romans and medieval knights pass through, each leaving their mark. For centuries, it was a disputed border between France and Germany, and today it is an integral part of the history of the Alsace plain.

"The Rhine unites everything. The Rhine is as fast as the Rhone, as wide as the Loire, as steep as the Meuse, as winding as the Seine, as clear and green as the Somme, as historic as the Tiber, as royal as the Danube, as mysterious as the Nile..." Victor Hugo

From wild river to controlled course

A constantly changing watercourse

The Rhine was not always as we know it today. It was a very irregular river, with several dead arms. The main bed of the Rhine moved enormously with the various floods, which had disastrous consequences for the villages along its banks as well as their agricultural crops.

Johann-Gottfried Tulla will present the first works of correction of the Rhine in 1812 to have only one wide bed. The goal: to reduce the spread of the river with a fixed and straight bed. This also allows to protect villages from flooding, to clean up the marshes, ensure better flood flow, create a continuous towpath and reclaim new land for agriculture.

The Canal d'Alsace

The Rhine Correction following the Tulla projects, reduced the distance between Basel and Worms by 81 km. This shortening ultimately increased the flow rate of the Rhine, and with it the depth of the riverbed, due to more pronounced erosion. Navigation was made impossible in some areas when the Rhine level was low. That is the reason why the Canal d'Alsace was built.

Its construction began in 1931 with the first dam in Kembs, in the south of Alsace. With the completion of this lock, three other dams followed until 1958, with Ottmarsheim, Fessenheim and Vogelgrun.

Today, the canal is 135 m wide at the water surface and 80 m at the bottom. The water depth in this side channel is estimated at between 8 and 10 metres.

Fun fact!

Only 10% of the Rhine water remains in the original river bed (when its level is normal). The remaining 90% is discharged into the Alsace Canal, downstream from Basel, at the Kembs dam.

12 locks for a navigable Rhine

There is a total of 12 dams with locks on the upper part of the Rhine, from Switzerland to the north of Alsace:

Augst and Birsfelden in Switzerland
Kembs, Ottmarsheim, Fessenheim and Vogelgrun, 4 locks on the Grand Canal d'Alsace.
Then down the Rhine: Marckolsheim, Rhinau, Gerstheim, Strasbourg-Neuhof, Gambsheim and finally to Iffezheim near Baden Baden, the only German lock on the Rhine. After Iffezheim, the Rhine flows freely to the North Sea.

These 12 locks allow a difference in altitude of 150 m to be crossed and ensure the passage of more than 18 000 boats each year.

hydroelectric power plants

10 large hydroelectric power plants and 2 small power plants mark the Rhine between Basel and Lauterbourg, over nearly 185 km of common border between France and Germany.

2 hydroelectric power plants are located on the territory Alsace Rhin BrisachThey produce the equivalent of 2/3 of Alsatian electricity consumption.

They are located at Vogelgrun et Fessenheim and have a panoramic viewpoint accessible free of charge.