Geography of Switzerland rolling hills and plains of the plateau. The smaller Jura Mountains are located on the north west side of the plateau. Much of the northern border with Germany follows the Rhine, though the Rhine enters Switzerland near Schaffhausen. The eastern border with Germany and a portion of Austria is drawn through Lake Constance (). A portion of the southwest border with France is drawn through Lake Geneva. Switzerland is divided into 26 sovereign cantons. The cantons along the Swiss Plateau tend to be the most populous, industrial and religiously Protestant. The cantons in the Alps tend to be less populous,
Cantons of Switzerland Confederacy was composed of 13 sovereign confederate allies (the Thirteen Cantons; ), and there were two different kinds: five rural states () – Uri, Schwyz (which became eponymous of the confederacy), Unterwalden, Glarus, Appenzell – and eight urban states () – Zürich, Bern, Luzern, Zug, Basel, Fribourg, Solothurn, Schaffhausen. Though they were technically part of the Holy Roman Empire, they had become "de facto" independent when the Swiss defeated Emperor Maximillian in 1499 in Dornach. In the early modern period, the individual confederate allies came to be seen as republics; while the six traditional allies had a tradition of direct