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The corpus of water mills studied in the region known as the Alsace Bossue is characterised by their limited concentration and their late technical development, to be explained by this region’s distance from major urban centres and from transport networks. This situation explains some of the particularities to which a recent inventory was able to draw attention: the slow process of mechanisation, specific architectural forms which reached maturity only during the 20th century and an unfailing attachment to water power, even up to recent times. The region’s relative isolation and its primarily agricultural vocation explain how some of these rural water mills at the frontiers of Alsace are still in use today.