Ruhrgebiet

With around 5.1 million inhabitants and an area of 4,439 square kilometres, the Ruhr area (also colloquially called Ruhrpott or Pott) is the largest conurbation in Germany and the fifth largest in Europe. This densely populated central North Rhine-Westphalian region is named after the Ruhr River, which runs along the southern edge. With its densely populated surrounding area and the conurbations on the Rhine, which extend far into the Cologne Bay, it forms the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, in which about ten million people live on an area of over 7,100 square kilometers. It is the central part of the European megaregion "Blue Banana". Plans for the formation of a Ruhr Metropolis are often summarized under the term Ruhrstadt. In 2010, the Ruhr area was the European Capital of Culture under the abbreviation RUHR.2010 (along with Pécs/Hungary and Istanbul).

The cities and districts of the Ruhr area belong to the regions of Rhineland and Westphalia-Lippe. The Ruhr area is essentially made up of several large cities that have grown together. From the settlements on the middle Lower Rhine, the urban landscape merges seamlessly into the Rhine-Ruhr area to the east and into the Rhine rail to the south. The regional centres and core cities of the Ruhr area Duisburg, Essen, Bochum and Dortmund were already established in the Middle Ages along the Westphalian Hellweg and reached their present structure with industrialisation and mining in the 19th and 20th centuries. The fifth regional centre of Hagen was not built until the 18th century.

Subject ID: 166998