Boundaries between cantons and municipalities in the Confederation.

3 May 2026

The external borders of the Swiss Confederation have remained virtually unchanged since 1815. Napoleon’s intervention had radically altered the external borders, and the Congress of Vienna (1814/1815) confirmed the independence and borders of the new Confederation.

Rhäzuns, the last Austrian territory within the Confederation, became part of the canton of Graubünden in 1819. The King of Prussia finally abdicated as Prince of Neuchâtel in 1857, a canton of the Confederation since 1815 and a republic since 1848!

Nevertheless, there are still two foreign enclaves within the Swiss Confederation: Campione in the canton of Ticino and Büsingen in the canton of Schaffhausen. The most recent expansion of the Swiss Confederation’s territory concerns Cavaione, a small village in Graubünden that had been situated in no man’s land for a long time.

Magden, Buus, Wintersingen and Maisprach

By contrast, the shifts within the Swiss Confederation and the cantons are all the more dynamic. The patchwork of municipalities from different cantons in the Three Lakes region and within the cantons of Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft and Aargau points to a dynamic historical process. The establishment of the canton of Jura in 1979 and, more recently, the transfer of Moutier from the canton of Bern to the canton of Jura can also be traced back to this centuries-long process.

A typical example is the formation of boundaries between small, centuries-old villages at the foot of the Sonnenberg. Following the conquest of Aargau by the Confederation in 1415, the Fricktal remained under Habsburg-Austrian rule until 1803. In various places, boundary stones from Habsburg-Austria are still present, as are those from Bern, the prince-bishopric of Basel and the city of Basel. For centuries, the city of Basel and Austria disputed the possession of the Sonnenberg.

The Sonnenberg

On 13 July 1461, the city of Basel acquired the villages of Buus, Wintersingen and Maisprach from the Amt Farnsburg of the Counts of Falkenstein. This area was a kind of enclave within the Fricktal. For a long time, the Sonnenberg belonged to a citizen of the municipality of Maisprach. He sold the Sonnenberg in the 14th or 15th century, in any case before 1461, to Austria, which thereby established the border of the Fricktal.

Basel contested this border; moreover, parts of the villages of Buus and Wintersingen were located within the Fricktal. The legal dispute between Basel and Austria lasted for many generations, and it was not until 1689 that an agreement à la suisse was reached: the mountain was divided into two.

Because of this history, the villages of Buus, Maisprach, and Wintersingen joined the Basel Reformation in 1529; Magden, however, as part of the Austrian Fricktal, remained Catholic. An anecdote tells that the young people from Buus, Maisprach and Wintersingen subsequently preferred to attend the cheerful Catholic festivals in the Fricktal rather than the austere Protestant gatherings – much to the displeasure of the priests and local dignitaries.

And yet, 1815 did not mark the end of history for these villages. Magden became part of the new canton of Aargau in 1803. Buus, Maisprach and Wintersingen (canton of Basel) underwent another major change: the division of the canton of Basel in 1833. From 1833 onwards, Buus, Maisprach and Wintersingen belonged to the canton of Basel-Landschaft (Maisprach, incidentally, supported the city of Basel rather than the separatists).

And even then, the situation was not entirely clear-cut: parts of the territory of the municipalities of Buus and Wintersingen were located within the new canton of Aargau. It was not until 1893 that this final conflict was resolved: Buus and the canton of Basel-Landschaft acquired the areas of Neu and Eigenried, whilst Wintersingen, on the other hand, lost Iglingen definitively to the canton of Aargau.

Conclusion

Since then, the legacy of the Austrian Habsburgs has been settled amicably. This process took almost five centuries. Perhaps this also serves as a mirror for understanding, or at the very least for gaining insight into other conflicts in Europe and elsewhere in the world.