Tri-national metropolitan region (TMO)

The trinational Upper Rhine area covers the regions of Baden and the Southern Palatinate in Germany, Alsace on the French side, and the five north-western Swiss cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau, Solothurn and Jura. The Trinational Metropolitan Region of the Upper Rhine (TMO) was founded in 2010 to combine the strengths of this region.

The border triangle monument.
Switzerland, Germany and France meet in the border triangle.

Capitalising on synergies

The aim of establishing the Tri-national Metropolitan Organisation (TMO) was not to found a new cooperation organisation, but to use synergies from the network of existing organisations. The political pillar includes the Upper Rhine Conference, the Upper Rhine Council, the Upper Rhine Cities Network and the four Eurodistricts. Together with the other pillars of the economy, science and civil society, these form the institutional foundation of the TMO.

The TMO has set itself the objective of developing the Upper Rhine area as an attractive and sustainable economic space and living environment and to make it a competitive player in both the national and international arena. It acts like an umbrella over the existing tri-national cooperations in the Upper Rhine and thus unifies their public appearances especially with regard to the political centres of Berlin, Brussels and Paris.

The Strategy 2030 of the TMO defines eleven strategic goals for the further development of cooperation in the Upper Rhine region, including climate protection and the environment, sustainable mobility and multilingualism.