The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region 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 in the
north, to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal,
Cologne, 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 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.
These six Urban Zones do not cover the cities of Remscheid and Solingen nor the district
of Rhein-Kreis Neuss.
Economy
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 as a whole 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.
From within, Düsseldorf and Cologne are by far the largest economic centers, 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 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, Hochtief AG, Essen and the Henkel Group, Düsseldorf.
Transportation
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 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.
Duisburg Port and Dortmund Port are large industrial inland ports and serve as hubs
along the Rhine and the German inland water transport system.
Tourism Events
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,
and the RuhrTriennale, as well as gamescom and other 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 a total of 13 Bundesliga football clubs, of which five are active in
the season of 2012/13.
The most successful among them are Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, 1.
FC Köln, FC Schalke 04 and Bayer 04 Leverkusen.
Signal Iduna Park, the stadium of Borussia Dortmund, is the biggest stadium in Germany.
Landmarks
Several tourist destinations within the region attract over 12 million tourists per year.
Cologne Cathedral, 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 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 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, 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
The following register lists all municipalities that officially belong to Rhine-Ruhr area.
Demographically, these municipalities include 20 cities, each with more than 100,000 inhabitants,
and 11 districts, 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
List of metropolitan areas in Europe by population List of metropolitan areas in Germany
References
Further reading Knapp, Wolfgang.
The Rhine-Ruhr area in transformation: Towards a European metropolitan region?.
European Planning Studies.
Dieleman, Frans M..
Randstad, Rhine-Ruhr and Flemish diamond as one polynucleated macro-region?.
Blackwell Publishing.
Blotevogel, Hans H..
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region: Reality and discourse.
European Planning Studies.
External links 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