ALSACE-LORRAINE, al'sas/blerlIn' (Ger. Elsass- Lothringen ; Elsass, ancient Alsatia, from the river Ill + Ger. Sasse, settler, ten ant; Lothringcn, the realm of Lothaire, grand son of Charlemagne). An imperial territory (Reichs/and) occupying the southwestern end of the Lerman Empire, and hounded by the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. the Rhine prov ince of Prussia. and the Rhine Palatinate on the north, Baden on the east, Switzerland on the south, and France (,n the west. Its area is 5603 square miles. It is divided into the dis tricts of Upper Alsace, Lower Alsaee, and Lor raine, the last being but a fragment of the old Lorraine. Alsace is bounded by the Rhine on the east and the Vosges on the west. By far the larger part of the country is flat or only slightly elevated. The eastern part of it is an extensive plain, slightly inclined toward the Rhine, where it occasionally passes into swamps and marshes. The western part is traversed by the Vosges, which attain their greatest elevation in Alsace, the Sulzer Belchen (Ballcm de Guehwiller I ris ing to a height of nearly 4700 feet above the sea.
German Lorraine is a plateau region. The off shoots of the Jura where they enter Alsaee are about 2500 feet high. Alsace-Lorraine belongs entirely to the basin of the Rhine. The Ill, a tributary of the latter, rises at the southern end of Alsace and runs in a northerly direction almost through its entire length. In the north. Alsaee is watered by the Zorn, and a few other tributaries of the Rhine: while the western part of Lorraine is crossed by the Moselle. The lakes are generally small, end some are used for irrigation and to furnish water power. The cli mate is mild, with a slight difference between the plains and the mountainous regions; the respective average summer temperatures of the two regions being 01° F. and 58°. and those for the winter being 39° and 37°. Stra-s burg has an average yearly temperature of 50° while in Metz it is about 45.5'. The rainfall is abundant.