The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a
polycentric
Polycentric is an English adjective, meaning "having more than one center," derived from the Greek words ''polús'' ("many") and ''kentrikós'' ("center"). Polycentricism (or polycentricity) is the abstract noun formed from polycentric. They may r ...
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
in
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
,
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 ...
. With a population density of 2,800/km2 and a population of over 5 million (2017), it is the largest
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
in Germany. It consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers
Ruhr
The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
Lippe
Lippe () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Herford, Minden-Lübbecke, Höxter, Paderborn, Gütersloh, and district-free Bielefeld, which forms the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe.
The d ...
to the north. In the southwest it borders the
Bergisches Land
The Bergisches Land (, ''Berg Country'') is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over ...
. It is considered part of the larger
Rhine-Ruhr
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (german: Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr) is the largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the region covers ...
metropolitan region
A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually com ...
of more than 10 million people, which is the third largest in Europe, behind only London and Paris.
The Ruhr cities are, from west to east:
Duisburg
Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...
,
Oberhausen
Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...
,
Bottrop
Bottrop () is a city in west-central Germany, on the Rhine–Herne Canal, in North Rhine-Westphalia. Located in the Ruhr industrial area, Bottrop adjoins Essen, Oberhausen, Gladbeck, and Dorsten. The city had been a coal-mining and rail cente ...
,
Mülheim an der Ruhr
Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many compan ...
,
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
,
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
,
Bochum
Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...
Hagen
Hagen () is the Largest cities in Germany, 41st-largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany. The municipality is located in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the R ...
,
Dortmund
Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...
,
Lünen
Lünen is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located north of Dortmund, on both banks of the River Lippe. It is the largest town of the Unna district and part of the Ruhr Area.
In 2009 a biogas plant was built to provide electric p ...
,
Bergkamen
Bergkamen (; Westphalian: ''Biärgkoamen'') is a town in the district of Unna, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated south of the river Lippe, approx. north-east of Dortmund and south-west of Hamm.
Bergkamen, a fairly new town in ...
,
Hamm
Hamm (, Latin: ''Hammona'') is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northeastern part of the Ruhr area. As of 2016 its population was 179,397. The city is situated between the A1 motorway and A2 motorway. Hamm railwa ...
and the districts of
Wesel
Wesel () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the capital of the Wesel district.
Geography
Wesel is situated at the confluence of the Lippe River and the Rhine.
Division of the city
Suburbs of Wesel include Lackhausen, Obrighove ...
,
Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen (; Westphalian: ''Riäkelhusen'') is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and indus ...
,
Unna
Unna is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna district.
The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Cologne, Münster, Hamm, D ...
and
Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis
The Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis is a district in the center of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is part of the southern Ruhr urban area and has ca. 324,000 inhabitants (2012). The district's seat (capital city) is Schwelm; the largest of its nine town ...
. The most populous cities are Dortmund (with a population of approximately 588,000), Essen (about 583,000) and Duisburg (about 497,000).
In the Middle Ages, the
Hellweg
In the Middle Ages, Hellweg was the official and common name given to main travelling routes in Germany. Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway a lance's width, about three metres, which the landholders through which the Hellweg pas ...
was an important trade route from the region of the Lower Rhine to the mountains of the
Teutoburg Forest
The Teutoburg Forest ( ; german: Teutoburger Wald ) is a range of low, forested hills in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the 17th century, the official name of the hill ridge was Osning. It was first renamed th ...
. The most important towns of the region from Duisburg to the
imperial city
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...
of Dortmund were concentrated along the Hellweg from the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
to
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
. Since the 19th century, these cities have grown together into a large complex with a vast industrial landscape, inhabited by some 7.3 million people (including
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
and
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
, large cities that are nearby but officially not part of the Ruhr area).
The Ruhr area has no administrative centre; each city in the area has its own administration, although there exists the supracommunal " Regionalverband Ruhr" institution in Essen. For 2010, the Ruhr region was one of the European Capitals of Culture.
Geography
The urban landscape of the Ruhr extends from the Lower Rhine Basin east to the Westphalian Plain and south to the hills of the Rhenish Massif. Through the centre of the Ruhr runs a segment of the
loess
Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.
Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...
belt that extends across Germany from west to east. Historically, this loess belt has underlain some of Germany's richest agricultural regions.
Geologically, the region is defined by
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
-bearing layers from the upper
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
period. The coal seams reach the surface in a strip along the river Ruhr and dip downward from the river to the north. Beneath the Lippe, the coal seams lie at a depth of 600 to 800 metres (2,000 to 2,600 feet). The thickness of the coal layers ranges from one to three metres (three to ten feet). This geological feature played a decisive role in the development of coal mining in the Ruhr.
According to the Regionalverband Ruhr (RVR, Ruhr Regional Association), 37.6% of the region's area is built up. A total of 40.7% of the region's land remains in agricultural use. Forests account for 17.6%, and bodies of water and other types of land use occupy the rest. The inclusion of four mainly rural districts in the otherwise mainly industrial Ruhr helps to explain the large proportion of agricultural and forested land. In addition, the city boroughs of the Ruhr region have outlying districts with a rural character.
Seen on a map, the Ruhr could be considered a single city, since—at least in the north–south dimension—there are no visible breaks between the individual city boroughs. Thus the Ruhr is described as a polycentric urban area, which shares a similar history of urban and economic development.
Because of its history, the Ruhr is structured differently from monocentric urban regions such as
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, which developed through the rapid absorption of smaller towns and villages by the most significant city among them. Instead in the Ruhr, the individual city boroughs and urban districts of the Ruhr grew in a rapid and parallel fashion independently of one another during the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
. The population density of the central Ruhr is about 2,100 inhabitants per square kilometre (about 5,400 per square mile)—not too high compared to other German cities.
Between the constituent urban areas are relatively open suburbs and even some open land with agricultural fields. In many places however, the borders between cities in the central Ruhr are unrecognizable, blending into one urban landscape due to continuous development across them.
The replanting of
brownfield land
In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land prev ...
has created new parks and recreation areas in recent decades. The Emscher Landschaftspark (Emscher Landscape Park) lies along the river
Emscher
The Emscher () is a river, a tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its overall length is with an mean outflow near the mouth into the lower Rhine of .
Description
The Emscher h ...
, formerly virtually an open sewer, parts of which have undergone natural restoration. This park connects strips of parkland running from north to south, which were developed through regional planning in the 1920s, to form a green belt between the Ruhr cities from east to west.
History
During the Middle Ages, much of the region that was later called the ''Ruhrgebiet'' was situated in the
County of Mark
The County of Mark (german: Grafschaft Mark, links=no, french: Comté de La Marck, links=no colloquially known as ) was a county and state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle. It lay on both sides of the Ruhr River ...
, the Duchies of
Cleves
Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...
and
Berg Berg may refer to:
People
*Berg (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
*Berg Ng (born 1960), Hong Kong actor
* Berg (footballer) (born 1989), Brazilian footballer
Former states
* Berg (state), county and duchy of the Hol ...
archbishop of Cologne
The Archbishop of Cologne is an archbishop governing the Archdiocese of Cologne of the Catholic Church in western North Rhine-Westphalia and is also a historical state in the Rhine holding the birthplace of Beethoven and northern Rhineland-Palati ...
. The region included some villages and castles, and was mainly agrarian: its
loess
Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.
Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...
soil made it one of the richer parts of western Germany. The
free imperial city
In the Holy Roman Empire, the collective term free and imperial cities (german: Freie und Reichsstädte), briefly worded free imperial city (', la, urbs imperialis libera), was used from the fifteenth century to denote a self-ruling city that ...
of Dortmund was the trading and cultural centre, lying on the
Hellweg
In the Middle Ages, Hellweg was the official and common name given to main travelling routes in Germany. Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway a lance's width, about three metres, which the landholders through which the Hellweg pas ...
, an important east–west trading route, that also brought prosperity to the town of
Duisburg
Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...
. Both towns were members of the
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
.
Industrial revolution
The development of the region into an urbanized industrial area started in the late 18th century with the early industrialisation in the nearby
Wupper
The Wupper is a right tributary of the Rhine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Rising near Marienheide in western Sauerland it runs through the mountainous region of the Bergisches Land in Berg County and enters the Rhine at Lever ...
Valley in the
Bergisches Land
The Bergisches Land (, ''Berg Country'') is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over ...
. By around 1820, hundreds of water-powered mills were producing textiles, lumber, shingles and iron in automated processes here. And in even more workshops in the hills, highly skilled workers manufactured knives, tools, weapons and harnesses, using water, coal and charcoal. History has no established name for this phase of the industrial revolution, but one could call it the early water-powered industrial revolution.
As the machines became bigger and moved from water power to steam power, locally mined coal and charcoal became expensive and there was not enough of it. The Bergische industry ordered more and more coal from the new
coal mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
area along the
Ruhr
The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
. Impressive and expensive railways were constructed through the hilly Wupper region, to bring coal, and later steel, in from the Ruhr, and for outward transport of finished products.
By 1850, there were almost 300 coal mines in operation in the Ruhr area, in and around the central cities of Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund. The coal was exported or processed in coking ovens into coke, used in
blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...
s, producing iron and steel. In this period the name ''Ruhrgebiet'' became common. Before the coal deposits along the Ruhr were exhausted, the mining industry moved northward to the Emscher and finally to the Lippe, drilling ever deeper mines as it went. Locks built at
Mülheim
Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many compan ...
on the Ruhr led to the expansion of Mülheim as a port. With the construction of the Cologne-Minden railway in the late 19th century, several iron works were built within the borders of the present-day city of
Oberhausen
Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...
.
Moreover, the
urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
also boosted the expansion of
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
connections. At the beginning of the 1880s, agricultural regions did not benefit from the newly built transport facilities as much as non-agricultural regions did. This in its turn increased inequality, and made
anthropometric
Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...
measurements, e.g. height, more dependent on
wage
A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remuner ...
s. In the long run, however, effects of the railroad proximity diminished.
Consequently, the population climbed rapidly. Towns with only 2000 to 5000 people in the early 19th century grew in the following 100 years to over 100,000. Skilled mineworkers were recruited from other regions to the Ruhr's mines and steel mills and unskilled people started to move in. From 1860 onwards there was large-scale migration from
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
,
Pomerania
Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
,
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
speakers and they were treated as second class citizens. In 1899 this led to a revolt in Herne of young Polish workers, who later established a Workers' Union. Skilled workers in the mines were often housed in "miners' colonies", built by the mining firms. By 1870, over 3 million people lived in the Ruhrgebiet and the new coal-mining district had become the largest industrial region of Europe.
During World War I the Ruhrgebiet functioned as Germany's central weapon factory. At a big Essen company, F. Krupp A.G., the number of employees rose from 40,000 to 120,000 or more, in four years. They were partly women, partly forced labourers.
Weimar Republic
The
Spartacist Uprising
The Spartacist uprising (German: ), also known as the January uprising (), was a general strike and the accompanying armed struggles that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolutio ...
in 1919, which originated in Berlin, became popular among the working class in the Ruhr, and the region quickly adopted Marxism. The uprising was defeated by the
Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...
in less than a week, and the Weimar Republic established control over the Ruhr. The
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
occurred in March 1919, when autocrats attempted to overthrow the Weimar government. The Weimar government defeated the putsch, albeit it advocated a general strike, which large parts of the working class participated in. The general strike effectively ended the Kapp government, but in the Ruhr, striking workers successfully managed to take government buildings in March 1920 shocking the rest of Germany. An armed revolt was then instigated, and the Red Guard installed a branch in the Ruhr. This became known as the Ruhr Uprising. The workers councils that led the uprising declared the Ruhr to be a socialist republic, but the Freikorps and
Reichswehr
''Reichswehr'' () was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army () was dissolved in order to be reshaped ...
put down the rebellion in April 1919, and re-established the Weimar Republic's control of the Ruhr.
In March 1921, French and Belgian troops occupied Duisburg, which under the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
formed part of the demilitarized Rhineland. In January 1923 the whole Ruhrgebiet was occupied as a reprisal after Germany failed to fulfill World War I reparation payments as agreed in the Versailles Treaty. The German government responded with "''passive resistance''", letting workers and civil servants refuse orders and instructions by the occupation forces. Production and transport came to a standstill and the financial consequences contributed to
German hyperinflation
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and ruined public finances in Germany and France, as well as several other countries. Passive resistance was called off in late 1923, allowing Germany to implement a currency reform and to negotiate the
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan (as proposed by the Dawes Committee, chaired by Charles G. Dawes) was a plan in 1924 that successfully resolved the issue of World War I reparations that Germany had to pay. It ended a crisis in European diplomacy following Wor ...
, which led to the withdrawal of the French and Belgian troops from the Ruhr in 1925. However, the occupation of the Ruhr caused several direct and indirect consequences on the German economy and government. Due to the lack of production caused by foreign occupation, the German economy lacked the domestic abilities to pay war reparations without intentionally causing inflation. Moreover, the government became increasingly unpopular due to its "passive resistance" to German production. The halt in domestic production made war reparations impossible to pay.
Nazi period
On 7 March 1936,
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
. The French passed the problem to the British, who found that the Germans had the right to "enter their own backyard", and no action was taken. In the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
, the Soviet delegate
Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat.
A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov wa ...
was the only one who proposed
economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they may ...
against Germany. All restraint on German rearmament was now removed. France's eastern allies (the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
) concluded that since the French refused to defend their own border, they certainly would not stand up for their allies in the East. Hitler could now continue eroding the alliance system that France had built since 1919. On 16 October 1936,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
repudiated the 1921 alliance with France and declared its absolute neutrality. In October 1937, Belgium signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.German-Belgian Pact Concluded 13 October 1937
During World War II, the bombing of the Ruhr in 1940–1944 caused a loss of 30% of plant and equipment (compared to 15–20% for German industry as a whole).Botting (1985), p. 125 A second battle of the Ruhr (6/7 October 1944 – end of 1944) began with an attack on
Dortmund
Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...
. The devastating bombing raids of Dortmund on 12 March 1945 with 1,108 aircraft – 748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, 68 Mosquitos – was a record to a single target in the whole of World War II. More than 4,800 tons of bombs were dropped through the city centre and the south of the city.
In addition to the strategic bombing of the Ruhr, in April 1945, the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
trapped several hundred thousand
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
British occupation zone
The British occupation zone in Germany (German: ''Britische Besatzungszone Deutschlands'') was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II. The United Kingdom along with her Commonwealth were one of the three major Allied po ...
, and Level of Industry plans for Germany abolished all German munitions factories and civilian industries that could support them and severely restricted civilian industries of military potential. The Ruhr Authority, an international body to regulate the Ruhr's coal and steel industries, was created as a condition for the establishment of the
Federal Republic of 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 between ...
.
During the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the Western allies anticipated that any
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
thrust into
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
would begin in the
Fulda Gap
The Fulda Gap (german: Fulda-Lücke), an area between the Hesse-Thuringian border (the former Inner German border) and Frankfurt am Main, contains two corridors of lowlands through which tanks might have driven in a surprise attack by the Sovi ...
and have the Ruhr as a primary target. Increased German control of the area was limited by the pooling of German coal and steel into the multinational
European Coal and Steel Community
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to regulate the coal and steel industries. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembo ...
in 1951. The nearby Saar region, containing much of Germany's remaining coal deposits, was handed over to economic administration by France as a protectorate in 1947 and did not politically return to Germany until January 1957, with economic reintegration occurring two years later. Parallel to the question of political control of the Ruhr, the Allies tried to decrease German industrial potential by limitations on production and dismantling of factories and steel plants, predominantly in the Ruhr. By 1950, after the virtual completion of the by-then much watered-down "level of industry" plans, equipment had been removed from 706
manufacturing plants
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
in the west, and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6.7 million tons. Dismantling finally ended in 1951. In all, less than 5% of the industrial base was dismantled.
The Ruhr was at the centre of the German economic miracle
Wirtschaftswunder
The ''Wirtschaftswunder'' (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social marke ...
of the 1950s and 1960s, as very rapid economic growth (9% a year) created a heavy demand for coal and steel.
After 1973, Germany was hard hit by a worldwide economic crisis, soaring oil prices, and increasing unemployment, which jumped from 300,000 in 1973 to 1.1 million in 1975. The Ruhr region was hardest hit, as the easy-to-reach coal mines became exhausted, and German coal was no longer competitive. Likewise the Ruhr steel industry went into sharp decline, as its prices were undercut by lower-cost suppliers such as Japan. The welfare system provided a safety net for the large number of unemployed workers, and many factories reduced their labor force and began to concentrate on high-profit specialty items.
As demand for coal decreased after 1958, the area went through phases of structural crisis (see
steel crisis
The steel crisis was a recession in the global steel market during the 1973–75 recession and early 1980s recession following the post–World War II economic expansion and the 1973 oil crisis, further compounded by the 1979 oil crisis, and last ...
) and industrial diversification, first developing traditional heavy industry, then moving into service industries and high technology. The air and water pollution of the area are largely a thing of the past although some issues take a long time to solve. In 2005,
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
'' has only one definition of "Ruhr": "a river of Germany, an important right-bank tributary of the lower Rhine". The use of the term "Ruhr" for the industrial region started in Britain only after World War I, when French and Belgian troops had occupied the Ruhr district and seized its prime industrial assets in lieu of unpaid reparations in 1923. In 1920, the
International Labour Office
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
published a report entitled ''Coal Production in the Ruhr District''. In 1923, the ''Canadian Commercial Intelligence Journal'', Volume 28, Issue 1013, includes the article, "Exports from the Ruhr district of Germany". In 1924 the English and American press was still talking of the "French occupation of the Ruhr Valley" or "Ruhr District". A 62-page publication seems to be responsible for the use of "Ruhr" as a short form of the then more common "Ruhr District" or "Ruhr Valley": Ben Tillett, A. Creech-Jones and Samuel Warren's ''The Ruhr: The Report of a Deputation from the Transport and General Workers Union'' (London 1923). Yet "The report of a deputation from the Transport and General Workers' Union which spent a fortnight examining the problems in the Ruhr Valley", published in ''The Economic Review'', Volume 8, 1923, is still using the traditional term. In the same year, "Objections by the United States to discriminatory regulations on exports from the occupied region of the Ruhr" was published in ''Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States''.
The 1926 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', in addition to its article on the river Ruhr, has a further article on "RUHR, the name given to a district of Westphalia, Germany". Thus the name "Ruhr" was given to the region (as a short form of "Ruhr District" or "Ruhr Valley") only a few years before the publication of this edition of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Even after World War II, the term "Ruhr" may not have been in general use for the region: it was defined in ''Documents on American Foreign Relations'' (1948): "For the purposes of the present Agreement: (i) the expression 'Ruhr' means the areas, as presently constituted, in Land North Rhine–Westphalia, listed in the Annex to this Agreement." However, Lawrence K. Cecil and Philip Hauge Abelson still write in 1967: "In the first place, the average person uses the term 'Ruhr' indiscriminately as the Ruhr River or the Ruhr district, two entirely different things. The Ruhr River is only one of half a dozen rivers in the Ruhr district, in addition to the Rhine. The Rhine itself runs through the heart of the Ruhr district." According to ''Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary'', a standard reference on place names around the world, the name "Ruhr" refers to the river. The name preferred for the region in this dictionary is "Ruhrgebiet", followed by "Ruhr Valley".
Climate
The Ruhr has an
oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...
in spite of its inland position, with winds from the Atlantic travelling over the lowlands to moderate temperature extremes, in spite of its relatively northerly latitude that sees significant variety in daylight hours. A consequence of the marine influence is a cloudy and wet climate with low sunshine hours. Summers normally average in the low 20s, with winters being somewhat above the freezing point.
From the onset of the 21st century, the effects of
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
have become more profound. The area has been affected by severe droughts (like 2018), heat waves with temperatures above (2019) and severe weather events like the
bow echo
A bow echo is the characteristic radar return from a mesoscale convective system that is shaped like an archer's bow. These systems can produce severe straight-line winds and occasionally tornadoes, causing major damage. They can also become de ...
that hit the cities on June 9, 2014, and caused tens of thousands of trees to fall which was publicly dubbed the "Pfingststurm" (German for "Whitsun storm"). Winters have become more mild which poses a risk for crops such as
apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
s whose blooms are vulnerable to late freezes if bud break happens too early.
Demographics
The ten largest cities of the Ruhr:
The local dialect of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
is commonly called ''Ruhrdeutsch'' or ''Ruhrpottdeutsch'', although there is really no uniform dialect that justifies designation as a ''single'' dialect. It is rather a working-class
sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acquisi ...
with influences from the various dialects found in the area and changing even with the professions of the workers. A major common influence stems from the coal mining tradition of the area. For example, quite a few locals prefer to call the Ruhr either "Pott", which is a derivate of "Pütt" (pitmen's term for ''mine''; cp. the English "pit"), or "Revier".
During the nineteenth century, the Ruhr attracted up to 500,000 ethnic
Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Ce ...
,
Masurians
The Masurians or Mazurs ( pl, Mazurzy; german: Masuren; Masurian: ''Mazurÿ''), historically also known as Prussian Masurians (Polish: ''Mazurzy pruscy''), is an ethnographic group of Polish people, that originate from the region of Masuria, ...
and
Silesians
Silesians ( szl, Ślōnzŏki or Ślůnzoki; Silesian German: ''Schläsinger'' ''or'' ''Schläsier''; german: Schlesier; pl, Ślązacy; cz, Slezané) is a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Europ ...
from
East Prussia
East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...
and
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
in a migration known as ''
Ostflucht
The ''Ostflucht'' (; "flight from the East") was the migration of Germans, in the later 19th century and early 20th century, from areas which were then eastern parts of Germany to more industrialized regions in central and western Germany. The ...
'' (flight from the east). By 1925, the Ruhrgebiet had around 3,800,000 inhabitants. Most of the new inhabitants came from Eastern Europe, but immigrants also came from
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. It has been claimed that immigrants came to the Ruhr from over 140 countries. Almost all their descendants today speak German as a first language, and for various reasons, they do not identify with their Polish roots and traditions, often their Polish family names only remain as a sign of their past.
Culture
The Industrial Heritage Trail
The Industrial Heritage Trail (german: Route der Industriekultur) links tourist attractions related to the industrial heritage in the Ruhr area in Germany. It is a part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage. The series of routes were devel ...
(german: Route der Industriekultur) links tourist attractions related to the
European Route of Industrial Heritage
The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a tourist route of the most important industrial heritage sites in Europe. This is a tourism industry information initiative to present a network of industrial heritage sites across Europe. The ...
in the Ruhr area.
Ruhr is known for its numerous cultural institutions, many of which enjoy international reputation. Ruhr has three major opera houses and more than 10 theaters and stages.
*
Schauspielhaus Bochum
The Schauspielhaus Bochum is one of the notable drama theatres in Germany. It is located on Königsallee in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. Eric de Vroedt
Eric de Vroedt (Rotterdam, 1972) is a Dutch theater director, writer and actor.
Caree ...
*
Opernhaus Dortmund
Opernhaus Dortmund is the opera house of Dortmund, Germany, operated by the Theater Dortmund organisation. A new opera house opened in 1966, replacing an earlier facility which opened in 1904 and was destroyed during World War I. It was built o ...
*
Theater Dortmund
Theater Dortmund is a theatrical organization that produces operas, Musical theatre, musicals, ballets, plays, and concerts in Dortmund, Germany. It was founded as the Stadttheater Dortmund in 1904. Supported by the German Government, the organiza ...
*
Theater Oberhausen
Theater Oberhausen is a theatre in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW () ...
Dortmunder Philharmoniker
The Dortmunder Philharmoniker (Dortmund Philharmonic) are a German symphony orchestra based in Dortmund. The orchestra of the Theater Dortmund performs opera in the Opernhaus Dortmund and concert in the Konzerthaus Dortmund. The orchestra was ...
. Each year in spring time, there is the
Klavier-Festival Ruhr
The Klavier-Festival Ruhr (also ''Klavierfestival Ruhr'') is an annual festival of piano music, which takes place in the area of the Ruhr in Germany. The festival runs from around the beginning of May for three months. The organizer of the fest ...
in the Ruhr area with 50 to 80 events of classical and jazz music.
With more than 50 museums, Ruhr has one of the largest variety of museums in Europe.
*
German Mining Museum
The German Mining Museum in Bochum (german: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum) or DBM is one of the most visited museums in Germany with around 365,700 visitors per year (2012).Auskunft der Pressestelle des DBM, 12 September 2013 It is the largest ...
at Bochum
*
German Football Museum
The German Football Museum (german: Deutsches Fußballmuseum) aka DFB-Museum is the national museum for German football in Dortmund, Germany. It opened on 23 October 2015.
History
After the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, the German Football ...
Natural history museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
at Dortmund
*
Museum Folkwang
Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...
at Essen
*
Essen Cathedral Treasury
The Essen Cathedral Treasury (German: Essener Domschatz) is one of the most significant collections of religious artworks in Germany. A great number of items of treasure are accessible to the public in the treasury chamber of Essen Minster. The ...
at Essen
*
Museum Küppersmühle
Museum Küppersmühle (MKM) is a Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art based Duisburg's Inner Harbour. It houses the Ströher Collection. It is part of the Duisburg: Town and Harbour section of the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail.
History
Bui ...
at Duisburg
*
Lehmbruck-Museum
The Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Center for International Sculpture is a museum in Duisburg, Germany.
Sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, after whom the museum is named, make up a large part of its collection. However, the museum has a sub ...
at Duisburg
*
Hagen Open-air Museum
The Hagen Westphalian Open-Air Museum (german: LWL-Freilichtmuseum Hagen – Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Handwerk und Technik; English: "LWL Open-air Museum Hagen – Westphalian State Museum for Craft and Technics") is a museum at Hage ...
at Hagen
Industrial Museum
*
Zollern II/IV Colliery
The Zeche Zollern II/IV (translated: Zollern II/IV Colliery) is located in the northwestern suburb of Bövinghausen of Dortmund, Germany. The ''Gelsenkirchener Bergwerks-AG'' projected Zollern in 1898 as a model colliery.
Colliery
Ground up con ...
at Dortmund
*
German Inland Waterways Museum
The German Inland Waterways Museum (Museum der Deutschen Binnenschifffahrt) is located in Ruhrort, Duisburg at the nucleus of Duisburg-Ruhrorter ports which today make up the largest European inland harbour complex.
The museum was founded in 1 ...
Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex
The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (German Zeche Zollverein) is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The first coal mine on the premises was founded in 1847, and mining activities took pla ...
at Essen
*
Gasometer Oberhausen
The Gasometer Oberhausen is a former gas holder in Oberhausen, Germany, which has been converted into an exhibition space. It has hosted several large scale exhibitions, including two by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The Gasometer is an industrial la ...
at Oberhausen
*
Ewald Colliery
The Ewald Colliery (German: Zeche Ewald) is a disused coal mine in Herten, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Established in 1872, it was one of several major mining sites in the heavily-industrialized Ruhr district in northwestern Germany dur ...
at Herten, dedicated to green energy and a commercial and cultural park
The city of Essen (representing the Ruhr) was selected as European Capital of Culture for 2010 by the
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...
.
In
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, the
Revierderby
The Revierderby () is the name given to any association football match between two clubs in the Ruhr region – also known in German as the ', a contraction of ''Bergbaurevier'' (mining area) – in North Rhine-Westphalia, but almost always refe ...
is the rivalry between
Borussia Dortmund
Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional footb ...
and
FC Schalke 04
Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhi ...
, and to a lesser extent between either club and/or
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
,
MSV Duisburg
Meidericher Spielverein 02 e. V. Duisburg, commonly known as simply MSV Duisburg (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia. Nicknamed ''Die Zebras'' for their traditional striped jers ...
or
Rot-Weiss Essen
Rot-Weiss Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club currently plays in the 3. Liga, at the Stadion an der Hafenstraße.
The team won the DFB-Pokal in 1953, and the German championship in 195 ...
(''kleines Revierderby'').
Education
With 22 universities and colleges and more than 250,000 students, the Ruhr region has the highest density of further education establishments anywhere in Germany. These include five universities alone in the cities of Bochum, Duisburg, Dortmund, Essen and
Witten
Witten () is a city with almost 100,000 inhabitants in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Geography
Witten is situated in the Ruhr valley, in the southern Ruhr area.
Bordering municipalities
* Bochum
* Dortmu ...
. In addition,
Folkwang University of the Arts
The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in E ...
is an internationally acclaimed art college with its base in the Ruhr region. Furthermore, the universities are not the only places in the Ruhr region where academic qualifications can be obtained. There are 17 different universities of applied sciences which offer students to have the opportunity to undertake practice-relevant and qualified studies in various subjects, such as economics, logistics, administration or management.
Universities
The Ruhr area has 5 major universities in 6 cities with about 120,000 students.
*
Ruhr University Bochum
The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...
*
University of Duisburg-Essen
The University of Duisburg-Essen (german: link=no, Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded ...
*
Technical University of Dortmund
TU Dortmund University (german: Technische Universität Dortmund) is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's an ...
*
Folkwang University of the Arts
The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in E ...
*
Witten/Herdecke University
Witten/Herdecke University is a private, state-recognized, nonprofit university in Witten, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was the first German private institution of higher education to receive accreditation as a "Universität", a status r ...
UA Ruhr
The three largest universities (Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the University of Duisburg-Essen) opened an alliance called " UA Ruhr". Students enrolled at one of the UA Ruhr universities can attend lectures and seminars at all three institutions without having to pay a visiting student fee. Consequently, they have many options to specialize in and to explore their chosen disciplines in depth. The UA Ruhr has three liaison offices for interested students in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
and
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
.
Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts
Bochum
* Bochum University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Bochum, formerly ''Fachhochschule Bochum'')
* Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences (TH Georg Agricola)
* Protestant University of Applied Sciences, Rheinland-Westphalia-Lippe (Evangelische FH Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe)
* Schauspielschule Bochum (Bochum drama school)
* College of the Federal Social Security, Department of Social Insurance for Miners, Railway Employees and Seafarers (Fachhochschule des Bundes der Sozialversicherung, Abteilung Knappschaft-Bahn-See)
* University of Health Sciences (Hochschule für Gesundheit)
Bottrop
* Hochschule Ruhr West
Dortmund
*
Fachhochschule Dortmund
Fachhochschule Dortmund - University of Applied Sciences and Arts (german: Fachhochschule Dortmund) is a university of applied sciences (German: ''Fachhochschule'') in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with 14,057 students, and 894 staff, ...
* FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie & Management, Standort Dortmund (Academy for management)
* Fachhochschule für öffentliche Verwaltung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Academy for public administration)
* International School of Management (Private academy focussing on management and economics)
* IT-Center Dortmund (Private college)
Duisburg
* FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management (Academy for management)
* Fachhochschule für öffentliche Verwaltung (Academy for public administration)
Essen
* FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management
* Hochschule für bildende Künste
* Orchesterzentrum NRW
Gelsenkirchen
* Westfälische Hochschule
* Fachhochschule für öffentliche Verwaltung NRW (Academy for public administration)
Hagen
*
University of Hagen
The University of Hagen (german: link=no, FernUniversität in Hagen, informally often referred to as FU Hagen) is a public research university that is primarily focused on distance teaching. While its main campus is located in Hagen, North Rh ...
* FOM Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management
* Fachhochschule für öffentliche Verwaltung (Academy for public administration)
*
South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences
The South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences erman : Fachhochschule Südwestfalenis a high-ranked research institution located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 14,000 students, it is one of the largest of it ...
Hamm
* SRH Hochschule für Logistik und Wirtschaft
* Hochschule Hamm-Lippstadt
Kamp-Lintfort
*
Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences
Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (german: Hochschule Rhein-Waal) or HSRW, is a young and fast-growing German public university that first opened for the winter semester of 2009/10. It is known to be the most international-oriented universi ...
Mülheim an der Ruhr
* Hochschule Ruhr West
* Fachhochschule für öffentliche Verwaltung NRW (Academy for public administration)
Recklinghausen
* Westfälische Hochschule
Unna
* Hochschule Campus Unna
Transport
Public transport
With the exception of public transport companies serving
Hamm
Hamm (, Latin: ''Hammona'') is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northeastern part of the Ruhr area. As of 2016 its population was 179,397. The city is situated between the A1 motorway and A2 motorway. Hamm railwa ...
and
Kreis Unna
The Unna () district is a Kreis (district) in central North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring authorities are the district of Coesfeld, the city of Hamm, the districts of Soest and Märkischer Kreis, the cities of Hagen and Dortmund, and the ...
, all such companies in the Ruhr region are run under the umbrella of the
Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr
The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (), abbreviated VRR, is a public transport association (Verkehrsverbund) in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It covers most of the Ruhr area, as well as neighbouring parts of the Lower Rhine region, includ ...
, which provides a uniform ticket system valid for the entire area. The Ruhr region is well-integrated into the national rail system, the
Deutsche Bahn
The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder.
describes itself as the se ...
, for both passenger and goods services, each city in the region has at least one or more train stations. The bigger central stations have hourly direct connections to the bigger European cities as
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
,
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
or
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
.
The Ruhr area also contains the longest
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
system in the world, with tram and
Stadtbahn
' (; German for "city railway"; plural ') is a German word referring to various types of urban rail transport. One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that co ...
services from
Witten
Witten () is a city with almost 100,000 inhabitants in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Geography
Witten is situated in the Ruhr valley, in the southern Ruhr area.
Bordering municipalities
* Bochum
* Dortmu ...
to
Krefeld
Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, i ...
as well as the
Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn
The Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn (german: S-Bahn Rhein-Ruhr) is a polycentric and electrically driven S-train network covering the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region in the German federated state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This includes most of the Ruhr (and ci ...
network.
Originally the system was even bigger, it was possible to travel from
Unna
Unna is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna district.
The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Cologne, Münster, Hamm, D ...
to
Bad Honnef
Bad Honnef () is a spa town in Germany near Bonn in the Rhein-Sieg district, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the border of the neighbouring state Rhineland-Palatinate. To the north it lies on the slopes of the Drachenfels (“Dragon's Ro ...
without using railway or bus services.
Road transport
The Ruhr has one of the densest motorway networks in all of Europe, with dozens of
Autobahn
The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. ...
s and similar Schnellstraßen (expressways) crossing the region. The Autobahn network is built in a grid network, with four east–west ( A2, A40, A42,
A44 A44 may refer to :
* A44 road (Great Britain), a road connecting Oxford, England and Aberystwyth, Wales
* A44 motorway (Germany), a road connecting Aachen at the German-Belgian border and Kassel
* A44 motorway (Netherlands), a motorway in the Nethe ...
) and seven north–south ( A1, A3, A43, A45, A52, A57, A59) routes. The A1, A2 and A3 are mostly used by through traffic, while the other autobahns have a more regional function.
Both the A44 and the A52 have several missing links, in various stages of planning. Some missing sections are currently in construction or planned to be constructed in the near future.
Additional expressways serve as bypasses and local routes, especially around Dortmund and Bochum. Due to the density of the autobahns and expressways,
Bundesstraße
''Bundesstraße'' (German for "federal highway"), abbreviated ''B'', is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.
Germany
Germany's ''Bundesstraßen'' network has a total length of about 40,000 km.
German ''Bundesstraßen'' ...
n are less important for intercity traffic. The first Autobahns in the Ruhr opened during the mid-1930s. Due to the density of the network, and the number of alternative routes, traffic volumes are generally lower than other major metropolitan areas in Europe. Traffic congestion is an everyday occurrence, but far less so than in the
Randstad
The Randstad (; "Rim" or "Edge" City) is a roughly crescent-shaped conurbation in the central-western Netherlands, consisting primarily of the four largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht); their suburbs, and many tow ...
in the Netherlands, another polycentric urban area. Most important Autobahns have six lanes, but there are no eight-lane Autobahns in the Ruhr.
Air transport
Düsseldorf Airport
Düsseldorf Airport (german: link=no, Flughafen Düsseldorf, ; until March 2013 ''Düsseldorf International Airport''; ) is the international airport of Düsseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is about north ...
is the intercontinental airport for
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
and is within 20 km of most of the Western Ruhr area.
It is served by the Düsseldorf Flughafen and
Düsseldorf Flughafen Terminal railway station
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
s, with its several parking lots, terminals and stations being connected by the '' Skytrain''.
Dortmund Airport
Dortmund Airport is a minor international airport located east of Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It serves the eastern Rhine-Ruhr area, the largest urban agglomeration in Germany, and is mainly used for low-cost and leisure charter flight ...
in the Eastern Ruhr is a mid-sized airport, offering scheduled flights to domestic and European destinations and its approximately 1.9 million passengers in 2013. Dortmund Airport is served by an express bus to Dortmund main station, a shuttle bus to the nearby railway station ''
Holzwickede
Holzwickede () is a municipality in the district of Unna in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
It is twinned with Weymouth, Louviers and Colditz
Colditz () is a small town in the district of Leipzig, in Saxony, Germany. It is best known for Col ...
/Dortmund Flughafen'', a bus connecting to Stadtbahn line U47, as well as a bus to the city of
Unna
Unna is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna district.
The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Cologne, Münster, Hamm, D ...
.
File:Straßenbahn Essen 106 1614 Hauptbahnhof 1910040732.jpg, A tram of the
Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn
The Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn (german: Stadtbahn Rhein-Ruhr) is an umbrella system of all of the Stadtbahn ( light rail) lines included in the integrated public transport network of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR), which covers the Rhine-Ruhr met ...
File:VRR Linien-Netz 2014.svg, Public transport map Rhein-Ruhr
File:Ruhrtalbruecke-Sonnenuntergang.jpg,
Bundesautobahn 52
is an autobahn in western Germany. It starts at the Dutch-German border near the community of Niederkrüchten, district of Viersen. From Elmpt it runs northeast.
Its westernmost part serves as an important commuter route into Düsseldorf. The a ...
in
Mülheim
Mülheim, officially Mülheim an der Ruhr () and also described as ''"City on the River"'', is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It is located in the Ruhr Area between Duisburg, Essen, Oberhausen and Ratingen. It is home to many compan ...
Dortmund
Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...
File:Flughafen Dortmund.jpg,
Dortmund Airport
Dortmund Airport is a minor international airport located east of Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It serves the eastern Rhine-Ruhr area, the largest urban agglomeration in Germany, and is mainly used for low-cost and leisure charter flight ...
Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (german: Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr) is the largest metropolitan region in Germany, with over ten million inhabitants. A polycentric conurbation with several major urban concentrations, the region covers ...
*
Metropolitan regions in Germany
There are eleven metropolitan regions in Germany consisting of the country's most densely populated cities and their catchment areas. They represent Germany's political, commercial and cultural centres. The eleven metropolitan regions in Germany ...
*
Occupation of the Ruhr
The Occupation of the Ruhr (german: link=no, Ruhrbesetzung) was a period of military occupation of the Ruhr region of Germany by France and Belgium between 11 January 1923 and 25 August 1925.
France and Belgium occupied the heavily industria ...
Silesian metropolitan area
The Upper Silesian metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in southern Poland and northeastern Czech Republic, centered on the cities of Katowice and Ostrava in Silesia and has around 5 million inhabitants. Located in the three administrati ...
*
Upper Silesian Coal Basin
The Upper Silesian Coal Basin ( pl, Górnośląskie Zagłębie Węglowe, GZW, cs, Hornoslezská uhelná pánev) is a coal basin in Silesia, in Poland and the Czech Republic.Tour the Ruhr: The English language guide ' (3rd ed., 2008) () Klartext Verlag, Essen
* Berndt, Christian. ''Corporate Germany between Globalization and Regional Place Dependence: Business Restructuring in the Ruhr Area'' (2001)
* Crew, David. '' Town in the Ruhr: A Social History of Bochum, 1860–1914'' (1979) ()
* Fischer, Conan. ''The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924'' (2003)
* Gillingham, John. "Ruhr Coal Miners and Hitler's War", ''Journal of Social History'' Vol. 15, No. 4 (Summer, 1982), pp. 637–65 in JSTOR Chauncy D. Harris, "The Ruhr Coal-mining District", ''Geographical Review,'' 36 (1946), 194–221.
* Gillingham, John. ''Industry and Politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr Coal, Hitler, and Europe'' (1985) ()
* Pounds, Norman J. G. "The Ruhr Area: A Problem in Definition," ''Geography'' 36#3 (1951), pp. 165–178 online * Pounds, Norman J. G. ''The Ruhr: A Study in Historical and Economic Geography' (1952) online * Pierenkemper, Toni. "Entrepreneurs in Heavy Industry: Upper Silesia and the Westphalian Ruhr Region, 1852 to 1913", ''Business History Review'' Vol. 53, No. 1 (Spring, 1979), pp. 65–7 in JSTOR * Royal Jae Schmidt. ''Versailles and the Ruhr: Seedbed of World War II'' (1968)
* Spencer, Elaine Glovka. "Employer Response to Unionism: Ruhr Coal Industrialists before 1914," ''Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 397–41 in JSTOR * Spencer, Elaine Glovka. ''Management and Labor in Imperial Germany: Ruhr Industrialists as Employers, 1896–1914.'' Rutgers University Press (1984) online * Todd, Edmund N. "Industry, State, and Electrical Technology in the Ruhr Circa 1900", ''Osiris'' 2nd Series, Vol. 5, (1989), pp. 242–25 in JSTOR