Lauterbourg is a commune and Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. Situated on the German border and not far from the German city of Karlsruhe, it is the easternmost commune in Metropolitan France (excluding the island of Corsica). The German town across the border is Neulauterburg.GeographyLauterbourg lies near the Lauter and Rhine rivers.The commune contains several small lakes in the flat land directly on the west of the Rhine, with which they connect.The commune is the confluence of more than one ecotone: an ecotone between river and agrisystem and one between agrisystem and the forest (Forêt du Bienwald), whose northern edge coincides with the German frontier. The commune is entirely set on the alluvial land fronting the River Rhine, but the foothills of the north Vosges Mountains, where the River Lauter has its source, are not far away. In anthropological and cultural terms, Lauterbourg is at the meeting point with the two German territories (formerly separate states) of Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. On the other hand, it is also adjacent to a major river and land route which for centuries has been a focus of commercial and cultural currents, but also of major military currents in times of war.