Strasbourg-Ortenau Eurodistrict

The district is formed by the Eurométropole de Strasbourg (centred on the city of Strasbourg), the Communauté de communes du Canton d'Erstein (a groupement of the urban communities of Rhinau, Erstein and Benfeld) and the French State on the French side of the Rhine and the Ortenau district, comprising the cities of Achern, Kehl, Lahr, Oberkirch and Offenburg, in the Baden-Württemberg region on the German side.

[1] The population of the district was roughly 1,000,000 in 2022,[2] and it covers an area of 2,468 km2 (953 sq mi)[3] Building on regional and Franco-German cooperation, it aims to develop bonds between citizens, associations, public administrations, educational establishments and corporations.

[4] The idea of a eurodistrict Strasbourg-Kehl (as it was called then) was officially launched on 22 January 2003, by then-French President Jacques Chirac and then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder during a meeting in the Élysée Palace; it was point 24 of the common declaration made on the 40th anniversary of the cooperation treaty between Germany and France.

[6] On 30 June 2003, the French minister for European Affairs, Noëlle Lenoir, and her German colleague, Hans Martin Bury, signed the official document specifying the legal, political, economical, demographic etc.

The document also announced that further presentations of the project were to be made at the French-German summit in the following autumn, as well as during the crossborder flower festival on both banks of the Rhine held in Strasbourg and Kehl in the spring 2004.