In the mid-1790s, following the French occupation of the entire left bank of the Rhine, the département's northern boundary was extended north beyond the Lauter to the Queich river to include the areas of Annweiler am Trifels, Landau an der Pfalz, Bad Bergzabern, and Wörth an der Rhein. However, upon Napoleon's second defeat in 1815, the Congress of Vienna reassigned the areas north of the Lauter to Bavaria; and those territories are now presently located in the neighboring German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.