Büsingen am Hochrhein, commonly known as Büsingen, is a German town (7.62 km2 or 2.94 sq mi) entirely surrounded by the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen and, south across the Rhine, by the Swiss cantons of Zürich and Thurgau. It has a population of about 1,450 inhabitants. Since the early 19th century, the town has been separated from the rest of Germany by a narrow strip of land (at its narrowest, about 700 m wide) containing the Swiss village of Dörflingen.
Administratively, Büsingen is part of Germany, forming part of the district of Konstanz, in Baden-Württemberg, but economically, it forms part of the Swiss customs area, as do the independent principality of Liechtenstein and the Italian town of Campione d’Italia. There are no border controls between Switzerland and Büsingen or the rest of Germany since Switzerland joined the Schengen Area in 2008/09.
Long under Austrian control, the town became part of the German kingdom of Württemberg under the 1805 Peace of Pressburg agreement during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1918 after the First World War a referendum was held in Büsingen in which 96% of voters chose to become part of Switzerland. However, it never happened as Switzerland could not offer anything suitable in exchange, and consequently Büsingen has remained an exclave of Germany ever since. Later attempts were rejected by Switzerland.
The exclave of Büsingen was formally defined in 1967 through negotiations between West Germany and Switzerland. At the same time, the West German exclave of Verenahof, consisting of just three houses and fewer than a dozen people, became part of Switzerland.
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