The Rieth is a district in the north of the

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

n state capital

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Rieth is a

prefabricated Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States a ...

with 5650 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2012) on an area of 0.72 km², built in 1969. Before the

fall of communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

, however, considerably more people lived in this district. Neighbouring districts are ''Hohenwinden-Sulza'' (industrial area) in the east, ''Ilversgehofen'' (

Gründerzeit (; "founders' period") was the economic phase in 19th-century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. In Central Europe, the age of industrialisation had been taking place since the 1840s. That period is not precisely ...

district) in the south, ''Berliner Platz'' (prefabricated housing area) in the west, ''Moskauer Platz'' (prefabricated housing area) in the northwest, ''Gispersleben'' (village) in the north and ''Roter Berg'' (prefabricated housing area) in the northeast. The district is situated on the river

Gera Gera is a city in the German state of Thuringia. With around 93,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt and Jena as well as the easternmost city of the ''Thüringer Städtekette'', an almost straight string of cit ...

, its centre is the ''Platz der Völkerfreundschaft'' with the shopping centre ''Vilnius-Passagen''. The adjoining district ''Berliner Platz'' is de facto regarded by many Erfurters as belonging to the Rieth and is often referred to as the Rieth. The Rieth is connected to the Erfurt city centre by

Erfurt Stadtbahn The Erfurt Stadtbahn is a light rail (german: Stadtbahn) network that is the basic public transit system of Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia in Germany. It represents the evolution of the city's original tramway which, outside of the city cente ...

tram lines 1 and 6. The name Rieth frequently appears in Thuringia as a component of place names. These are river floodplains reclaimed in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, which had previously become marshy and had been drained. Today's Rieth district is also located in such a

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

between the Gera River in the west and the river

Schmale Gera Schmale Gera is a river of Thuringia, Germany. It is a distributary of the Gera in Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ...

in the east. The Rieth was the first

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

housing estate with a complex centre in its centre, but the ''Johannesplatz'' was the first prefabricated housing estate to be built in Erfurt in 1965.

External links

* {{Coord, 51.0047, 11.0156, display=title Rieth