Hattingen is a town in the northern part of the

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 ...

district, 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 state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...

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 ...

History

Hattingen is located on the south bank of the River Ruhr in the south of the

Ruhr region 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 ...

. The town was first mentioned in 1396, when the Duke of

Mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * F ...

granted permission to build a city wall. Today, Hattingen has a picturesque historic district with ''

Fachwerk Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

'' (timber-framed houses) built between the 14th and 16th centuries. The old city is still partly surrounded by the city walls today. There are three castles remaining within the municipal area of Hattingen.Historic Town Center – Hattingen
Historische Stadt- & Ortskerne. Retrieved March 9, 2010

Isenburg Castle Isenburg may refer to: Places * Neu-Isenburg, town in the district of Offenbach in Hesse, Germany * Isenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, municipality in the district of Neuwied, Germany * , village in the borough of Wipperfürth in Oberbergischen Krei ...

was built in the 12th century in the hillsides above the Ruhr. The castle was destroyed in 1225, but prominent ruins remain.

Blankenstein Castle Blankenstein Castle (german: Burg Blankenstein) is a castle located on the south side of the river Ruhr (river), Ruhr in Hattingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Frank Dengler, Burg am 'blanken Stein'"''Ruhr Nachrichten'' (November 23, 201 ...

was built in the 13th century above the Ruhr river and Haus Kemnade is a moated castle from the 16th century. All three castles are famous tourist landmarks and open to the public. Hattingen became part of the Hanseatic League in 1554 and became an important trading town. In 1720, there were 52 operating coal mines within the municipal area and Hattingen became one of the first industrial cities of the

. Steel production started in 1853, when the Henrichshütte was founded. The Henrichshütte became one of the most important employers of the whole region and dominated the town until it closed in 1987. Today, Hattingen still faces problems concerning structural change of the economy, but is becoming a centre of tourism, especially its historical downtown.

Neighbouring cities

The cities bordering Hattingen are Bochum, Essen,

Sprockhövel Sprockhövel is a town in the district of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Sprockhövel is located in the southern suburban part of the Ruhr area. It is 6 km southeast of Hattingen, 8 km northwest of Gevels ...

Velbert Velbert ( Low Rhenish: ''Vèlbed'') is a town in the district of Mettmann, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The town is renowned worldwide for the production of locks and fittings. Geography Velbert is located on the hills of 'Niede ...

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 * Dortmun ...

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 tow ...

Division of the town

Hattingen is divided into the districts of

Blankenstein Blankenstein is a village and a former municipality in the district Saale-Orla-Kreis, in Thuringia, Germany. Since 1 January 2019, it is part of the municipality Rosenthal am Rennsteig Rosenthal am Rennsteig is a municipality in the district Saa ...

, Bredenscheid-Stüter, Hattingen-Mitte, Holthausen, Niederbonsfeld, Niederelfringhausen,

Niederwenigern Niederwenigern is a small borough of the city of Hattingen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe af ...

, Oberelfringhausen, Oberstüter, Welper and Winz-Baak.

Notable people

Mathilde Franziska Anneke Mathilde Franziska Anneke (née Giesler; April 3, 1817 – November 25, 1884) was a German writer, feminist, and radical democrat who participated in the Revolutions of 1848–1849. In late 1849, she moved to the United States, where she campaign ...

, feminist *

Erich Warsitz Erich Warsitz (18 October 1906, Hattingen, Westphalia – 12 July 1983) was a German test pilot of the 1930s. He held the rank of Flight-Captain in the Luftwaffe and was selected by the Reich Air Ministry as chief test pilot at Peenemünde We ...

, world's first jet pilot *

John J. Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching i ...

, sociolinguist * Harald Siepermann, Character Designer * Marie-Luise Marjan, actress * Jamiri (Jan-Michael Richter), comic artist *

Andreas Bieber Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

, singer and actor * Mirjam Müntefering, author *

Caliban (band) Caliban are a German metalcore band from Essen. To date, they have released thirteen studio albums and two EPs, along with two split albums with Heaven Shall Burn. History Caliban was formed in Essen, Germany in 1997 as ''Never Again''. In t ...

DJ Quicksilver Orhan Terzi (born 28 June 1964), better known by his stage name DJ Quicksilver, is a German-Turkish DJ and music producer. His stage name derives from his days taking part in DJ contests, where a mercury column would gauge audience reaction. Ear ...

, Disk Jockey *

Jost Gippert Jost Gippert (; born 12 March 1956 in Winz-Niederwenigern, later merged to Hattingen) is a German linguist, Caucasiologist, author, and professor for Comparative Linguistics at the Institute of Empirical Linguistics at the Goethe University of ...

, German linguist * Luke Hemmerich, German Football Player

Politics

In the local elections of 2004 the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SPD) was the largest party on the council with 24 seats. It was followed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 18 and the Alliance 90/The Greens with 7, the WBG (a conservative lis) and Free Democrats with four each, FLW (also a conservative list) with three, National Democratic Party two, and the

PDS PD, P.D., or Pd may refer to: Arts and media * ''People's Democracy'' (newspaper), weekly organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) * ''The Plain Dealer'', a Cleveland, Ohio, US newspaper * Post Diaspora, a time frame in the ''Honorverse'' ...

/WAL (socialists) and AUF Witten (a left wing list) with one each. From 2004 to 2020, for the first time in its history, the council was led by a female mayor: Sonja Leidemann (SPD). In the election of 2020 she lost her mandate to Lars König (CDU).

Mayor

The current mayor of Hattingen is Dirk Glaser, who ran as an independent. The most recent mayoral election was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September, and the results were as follows: ! rowspan=2 colspan=2, Candidate ! rowspan=2, Party ! colspan=2, First round ! colspan=2, Second round , - ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Dirk Glaser , align=left,

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, 8,756 , 39.4 , 9,356 , 58.3 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Frank Mielke , align=left,

, 6,723 , 30.2 , 6,695 , 41.7 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Frank Staacken , align=left, Alliance 90/The Greens , 4,281 , 19.3 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Christian Siever , align=left,

, 1,285 , 5.8 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Thomas Bausch , align=left,

, 1,185 , 5.3 , - ! colspan=3, Valid votes ! 22,230 ! 97.3 ! 16,051 ! 99.0 , - ! colspan=3, Invalid votes ! 614 ! 2.7 ! 154 ! 1.0 , - ! colspan=3, Total ! 22,844 ! 100.0 ! 16,205 ! 100.0 , - ! colspan=3, Electorate/voter turnout ! 45,151 ! 50.6 ! 45,151 ! 35.9 , - , colspan=7, Source: City of Hattingen
1st round

City council

The Hattingen city council governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2, Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- , - , bgcolor=, , align=left,

(SPD) , 7,404 , 33.1 , 8.8 , 16 , 3 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , 6,893 , 30.9 , 2.8 , 15 , ±0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) , 5,288 , 23.7 , 11.7 , 11 , 5 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Free Democratic Party (FDP) , 1,529 , 6.8 , 2.7 , 3 , 1 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left,

Die PARTEI (''Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative''), or Die PARTEI (''The PARTY''), is a German political party. It was founded in 2004 by the editors of the German satirical magazi ...

, 1,229 , 5.5 , New , 3 , New , - ! colspan=2, Valid votes ! 22,343 ! 97.8 ! ! ! , - ! colspan=2, Invalid votes ! 496 ! 2.2 ! ! ! , - ! colspan=2, Total ! 22,839 ! 100.0 ! ! 48 ! 2 , - ! colspan=2, Electorate/voter turnout ! 45,151 ! 50.6 ! 0.7 ! ! , - , colspan=7, Source
City of Hattingen

State Landtag

In the

Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia The Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia is the state parliament (''Landtag'') of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which convenes in the state capital of Düsseldorf, in the eastern part of the district of Hafen. The parliament ...

, Hattingen is part of the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis I constituency. Rainer Bovermann of the SPD has been representative since the constituency's creation in the 2005 election; he was most recently re-elected in 2017.

Federal parliament

In the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

, Witten is part of the

Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis II Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis II is an electoral constituency (German: ''Wahlkreis'') represented in the Bundestag. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system, it is designated as constituency 139. It ...

constituency.

Axel Echeverria Inaki Axel Echeverría Stefanski (born 19 March 1980) is a Spanish-German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since 2021. Early life and education Echeverria was born in 1980 in the We ...

of the SPD was elected as representative in the 2021 German federal election.

Gallery

Image:Hattingen 070912 017 10.jpg, Historic town Image:Hattingen, der Glockenturm in straatzicht DmA137 foto4 2015-04-19 13.10.jpg, ''Glockenturm'' in the background Image:Hattingen 20070915 1.jpg, Historic ''Fachwerk'' house, the Bügeleisenhaus Image:Hattingen, Menschen aus Eisen foto5 2012-03-27 16.08.JPG, Menschen aus Eisen

References

External links

* {{Authority control Towns in North Rhine-Westphalia Members of the Hanseatic League Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis