evidence: Our region is located on the northern border of the Middle Rhine Valley. When we hike through the hills and valleys of the Siebengebirge and look down on our small part of the Rhine, he has already come a long way from the Swiss Alpes to the Northern Sea, through Liechtenstein, Austria, France and the German Länder Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. [...] When the Rhine was straightened during the 20th century, parts of his old river bed around St. Gallen in Switzerland and Vorarlberg in Austria, were cut off. Today, these cut-off arms are nature reserves. The Alpine Rhine flows into Lake Constance on Austrian territory. Three countries meet here: Austria, Switzerland, and the German state Baden-Württemberg. Lake Constance consists of the Obersee (upper lake) and the Untersee (lower lake), which has Germany on the northern bank and Switzerland on the southern. The small Rhine section called Seerhein (Lake Rhine) connects both lakes.