Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region according to the LEP NRW, 1995
Country	Germany
State	North Rhine-Westphalia
Largest Cities	Cologne Düsseldorf Dortmund Essen Duisburg Bochum
Area
• Metro	7,110 km2 (2,750 sq mi)
Highest elevation	494 m (1,621 ft)
Lowest elevation	20 m (70 ft)
Population [1][2]
• Metro	11,316,429 inhab.
• Metro density	1,422/km2 (3,684/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
GRP	2004
Nominal	€330.9 billion (3rd in EU)

The skyline of Cologne at night, with Cologne Cathedral at the right

A view of Düsseldorf, the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia

The skyline of Dortmund

The skyline of Essen

The Ruhr in Essen

The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (German: Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr) is the largest metropolitan region in Germany with over 11 million inhabitants. It is of polycentric nature and the only megacity in Germany. It covers an area of 7,110 square kilometers and lies entirely within the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region spreads from Dortmund-Bochum-Essen-Duisburg (Ruhr Area) in the north, to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf (the state capital), Wuppertal, Cologne (the region's largest and Germany's fourth largest city), and Bonn in the south. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European "blue banana" makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas like Amsterdam and the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Region.

The metropolitan area is named after the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, which are the regions's defining geographical features and historically its economic backbone.

Subdivisions[link]

The largest cities in the Rhine-Ruhr area are Cologne, with over 1 million inhabitants, followed by Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen, which each have a population of over 500,000.

There are many different sub-definitions of what belongs to the Rhine-Ruhr area, but the metropolitan area itself has officially defined borders with Hamm in the east, Mönchengladbach in the west and Bonn in the south and the small city Wesel as its northernmost point. The northern border is similar to the border of the Ruhr Area.

The table below shows an unofficial summary of regions. In the official definition the metropolitan area is much smaller.

Eurostat's Urban Audit splits the Rhine-Ruhr region into six Larger Urban Zones (LUZ). These six Urban Zones do not cover the cities of Remscheid and Solingen nor the district of Rhein-Kreis Neuss.

Economy[link]

Historically, most of the Ruhr area was for the most part characterized by heavy industry since the age of industrialisation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Since the Middle Ages, Cologne, Dortmund and other cities were important regional trading cities, but during the 19th century the city of Düsseldorf grew to become the administrative center of the region and since 1945 its political capital.

Today, the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region accounts for roughly 15% of the GDP of the German economy, which would place it as the 3rd largest GRP of metropolitan area in the European Union and the 16th largest GDP in the world. Despite this size, the Rhine-Ruhr region often lacks international competitiveness from the lack of a unified presentation, in which cities and urban areas within it, often pursue a separate investment policy against each other.^[17]

From within, Düsseldorf and Cologne are by far the largest economic centers,^[18] with specialisation in financial/high tech and insurance/multi media services respectively. Other major economic centers are Bonn, Dortmund and Essen. The region is home to twelve^[19] Fortune Global 500 companies, among them E.ON AG, Düsseldorf, Deutsche Post AG, Bonn, Metro AG, Düsseldorf, Deutsche Telekom AG, Bonn, ThyssenKrupp AG, Essen/Duisburg, RWE AG, Essen, Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, Duisburg, Evonik Industries, Essen, Arcandor AG, Essen, Hochtief AG, Essen and the Henkel Group, Düsseldorf.

Transportation[link]

Map of DB 2650 connecting Cologne with Hamm

The metro area boasts the two international airports of Cologne/Bonn and Düsseldorf International and several regional/national airports like Dortmund Airport, Düsseldorf-Mönchengladbach Airport and Weeze Airport. The city of Cologne is also connected to Frankfurt Airport via the 1 hour Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line.

Commercial airports[link]

North Rhine-Westphalia has the densest network of Autobahns in Germany and the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr is the region's rapid transit system which interconnects all cities and their respective local U- and S-Bahn systems (Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn).

Duisburg Port (Duisport) and Dortmund Port are large industrial inland ports and serve as hubs along the Rhine and the German inland water transport system.

Tourism[link]

The Zeche Zollverein coal mine

Events[link]

The region is host to numerous large events, comprising fun fairs and cultural events like the Cologne and Düsseldorf carnivals, the Cologne Comedy Festival, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, the RuhrTriennale and the Cologne Gay Pride, as well as trade fairs at koelnmesse - Cologne Trade Fair and Messe Düsseldorf. With a capacity of up to 20,000 people, Kölnarena and Westfalenhallen are amongst the largest indoor arenas in Germany.

The region is home to eight Fußball-Bundesliga clubs, the most successful among them are Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, 1. FC Köln, FC Schalke 04 and Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Landmarks[link]

Several tourist destinations within the region attract over 12 million tourists per year. Cologne Cathedral,Dortmunder U at Dortmund Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces at Brühl and the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex at Essen are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Other sights include Schloss Benrath near Düsseldorf and several anchor points of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Museums[link]

NRW Forum, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Museum Koenig, Museum Ludwig, Romano-Germanic Museum, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Neanderthal Museum and Deutsches Museum Bonn are some of the most famous examples.

Education[link]

The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region is home to nine universities and over 30 partly postgraduate colleges, with a total of over 300.000 students. Largest and oldest university is the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln), originally founded in 1388 AD. Other universities include:

• the University of Bochum,
• the University of Bonn,
• the German Sport University Cologne,
• the Dortmund University of Technology,
• the University of Duisburg-Essen,
• the University of Düsseldorf,
• the FernUniversität Hagen and
• the University of Wuppertal.

Municipalities[link]

This map of the Rhine-Ruhr Area spans approximately 130 kilometers (81 mi) from north to south.

The following register lists all municipalities that officially belong to Rhine-Ruhr area. Demographically, these municipalities include 20 cities (German: ″Kreisfreie Städte″), each with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and 11 districts (German: "Kreis"), each with a population of more than 250,000 inhabitants. Some districts only belong partly to Rhine-Ruhr area. In such a case only the municipalities that belong to the metro area are listed.

See also[link]

NRW portal

• List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population
• List of metropolitan areas in Germany

References[link]

^[2]

Further reading[link]

• Knapp, Wolfgang (1998). The Rhine-Ruhr area in transformation: Towards a European metropolitan region?. European Planning Studies. 
• Dieleman, Frans M. (1998). Randstad, Rhine-Ruhr and Flemish diamond as one polynucleated macro-region?. Blackwell Publishing. 
• Blotevogel, Hans H. (1998). The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region: Reality and discourse. European Planning Studies. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rhein-Ruhr

• Megacities, University of Cologne
• Die Zukunft gehört der Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr, Düsseldorf Regional Government
• Rhein-Ruhr, Europäische Metropolregionen in Deutschland
• Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr - ein Kunstprodukt, Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (BBR)

v t e Metropolitan regions in Germany Berlin/Brandenburg • Bremen/Oldenburg • Hamburg • Hannover-Braunschweig-Göttingen-Wolfsburg • Munich • Nuremberg • Rhine-Main • Rhine-Neckar • Rhine-Ruhr • Central German • Stuttgart states · urban districts · cities · cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants · municipalities