Nordrhein Westfalen Google Map, Germany

Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia in English) is the most populous state of Germany, as it has more than 18 million people distributed in an area of about 34,100 square kilometres. It is situated at the border of the very heart of western Germany and is the driving spine in the densely inhabited Blue Banana strip in Europe, connecting the major economic zones in the Netherlands, Belgium, as well as the Rhine-Main region of Germany itself. The geographical character of its strategic positioning has made the state a dynamic hub of business, culture, and innovation where transportation can easily be undertaken through a vast system of highways, high-velocity rails, intra-water resources and a number of international airports.

History

The history of human settlement in the contemporary area of North Rhine-Westphalia is some ten thousand years old, Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers having left their traces in the form of stone tools and former camps along river landscapes. By the 1st century BC, Celtic peoples, e.g. the Eburones, had settled along the west of the Rhine, whereas Germanic peoples like the Ubii and Sugambri had settled along the east banks. The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar brought the region to Roman domination, and the Rhine was the largest viable border between Europe and the rest of the world. Key Roman settlements (Bonna (modern Bonn), Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), Novaesium (Neuss) were reinforced and formed the basis of the urban centres that still exist today.

During the Middle Ages, there was a jigsaw of principalities, bishoprics and free cities. The Archbishopric of Cologne, one of the strongest ecclesiastical rulers in Europe, exercised its control along the Rhine, and the Duchy of Westphalia, a possession of the Archbishopric of Mainz, occupied a great deal of the inland. Competing territories were established by secular dynasties, including the Counts of Berg, Mark, and Cleves and the Prince-Bishopric of Munster. City-state rights were provided to imperial immediacy by Cologne, Munster and Paderborn, and they developed as trading centres on the Hanseatic and Rhine trade routes. The iconic Peace of Westphalia was achieved in the neighbouring German cities of Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, which brought an end to the Thirty Years' War, introduced the concept of state sovereignty, which has been used to inform the diplomacy in Europe ever since.

The emergence of Prussia in the 18th and 19th centuries completely changed the region. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 gave Westphalia and the Rhineland over to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of Napoleon. Modern administrative forms of government, legal codes, and schools began to be built under the awakened Prussian reforms. Giant mining seam or massive iron ore in Saarland led to the birth of industrial giants in the form of Krupp in Essen, Thyssen in Duisburg and Hoesch in Dortmund and the industrial entrepreneurs mined it to their benefit. The formation of the Zollverein customs union in the year 1834 helped in lifting tariffs on trade between the German states, and as such led to a boost in economic growth as well as urbanisation like it had never been before.

This was rapid industrialisation, which was accompanied by social tensions. Factory towns and mining societies became hotbeds of workers to create movements, socialist parties and interreligious struggles over Catholics and Protestants. However, by its unification of Germany in 1871, Prussia created the German Empire, stabilization of markets within Germany and created more technological advancement. The period spawned the most renowned Beaux-Arts civic structures and train cathedrals as well as tenements of employees, which now remain as a good memory of the mixed legacy the region has had.

Culture

The cultural landscape of North Rhine-Westphalia is as diverse as its geography and history, and it represents centuries of artistic inspiration, architectural majesty and folklore. Museums are everywhere, with Cologne having its Roman-Germanic museum of antiquities and Essen its Red Dot design museum of industrial design. In the Kunstakademie area, art galleries flourish, and some of the avant-garde stood out in the 1950s and 1960s, Zero and Fluxus. The country is home to historic venues such as Philharmonie in Cologne, and Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, which host orchestra and chamber music concerts, bringing top-of-the-world talent, and experimental theatre stages giving a chance to explore the fringe of performing arts.

There is lively life throughout the state in terms of events and customs. The Carnival of Cologne is the biggest street festival in Europe, which bursts out every February in weeks of parades, costume balls and satirical shows and features Rhineland humour and social critique. The Beethovenfest of the city of Bonn, the hometown of the composer, gives a tribute to him with entire symphonies, piano pieces, and chamber music being played by orchestras and soloists. “

The Ruhrtriennale takes over disused factories and railway sheds as industrial venues that achieve an artistic program that is multidisciplinary, including theatre, dance, music and the visual arts. The biergarten, open-air-theatre evenings, and music festivals in the villages are still spread in rural Westphalia and the Sauerland, where one still finds local dialect songs, folk dances, and culinary traditions.

North Rhine-Westphalian cuisine addresses its local differences and diapir influences. The traditional Rhineland food with Sauerbraten, a marinated pot roast and served with red cabbage and potato dumplings, exists side by side with the Westphalian foods like Pickert, a thick potato pancake, and Pumpernickel, a heavy rye bread that once sustained mineworkers. The historic melting pot, the Ruhr area, brings on dimensions of Polish, Italian, and Turkish flavours, turning the kebab stand and pierogi shop fixtures of urban neighbourhoods. Cologne, which touts its Kolsch beer in little thin glasses known as Stangen, just as Düsseldorf boasts of its sour Altbier, brings to an end the kind of friendly match-up known as brewery rivalry that fires locals and visitors alike.

Language

North Rhine-Westphalia has a very heterogeneous linguistic landscape, a kind of linguistic tapestry of local dialects and regional forms of speech, which have been shaped over centuries by the fragmentation of political regimes and the migration of people. Its linguistic role as a boundary was also used in medieval times when the Rhine became not only a trading highway but also a societal one.

Silesian, Polish, Italian and Turkish speech patterns themselves were introduced into the Ruhr in a wave of industrialisation and urbanisation in the 19th and 20th centuries, forming a kind of a melting pot of foreign and German-speaking patterns. And it was in this melting-pot that Ruhrdeutsch emerged as the urban regiolect blending Westphalian consonant pronunciations, Slavic loan words, Turkish phrases and Yiddish-based slang. It used to act as a lingua franca in the mining areas and still tints the daily usage of many local areas in Essen, Gelsenkirchen, and Oberhausen with a multi-ethnic background.

Geography

North Rhine-Westphalia has a unique location with its central and western European qualities in the middle. It is surrounded by the Netherlands and Belgium to the west, Lower Saxony to the north, Hesse to the southeast and Rhineland-Palatinate to the south, which makes it an important crossing point of goods and people. The topography of the state takes place across three wide terrains: the northern lowland of the North German Plain, the strongly industrialised central belt of the River Rhine and Ruhr and the southern plateau, which borders the Rhenish massif.

Northern Germany is characterised by low plains, which extend over the Lower Rhine Basin, over the Münsterland and Westphalian Bight, and then gently roll along. Subsistence farming, especially the production of cereals, dairy farming, and horticulture, is well established on fertile soils and with moderate rainfall over much of the region, especially near towns such as Altenbeken, Münster, Bielefeld and Gutersloh. The glacial and post-glacial landscapes are also covered in peat bogs and heathlands, as well as nature reserves that contain rare species of birds and amphibians. The climate is of a temperate maritime type, with winter averages barely above freezing and summer averages are at 20 °C.

The heart area, delimited by the point of meeting between the Rhine and the Ruhr, one of its largest tributaries, used to have some of the greatest coalfields in Europe. Nowadays, old mining terrain is replaced by port facilities, petrochemical parks, and the transformation of former industrial culture places. The Rhine River winds its way north, reaching a series of industrial centres in Duisburg, Düsseldorf and Cologne by water travel and areas of river cruising beauty. The Ruhr has dams, e.g. Moehnesee and Hennesee, which control water, supply drinking water and provide recreation, sailing, and beach holidays.

The environmental policies of North Rhine-Westphalia combine the renewal of the economy and ecological rebuilding. The landscape recultivation, including the reintroduction of landscape into such huge excavated pits formed by old lignite mines in the Lower Rhine area, e.g. Hambach, is one of the disused lignite mine areas. Rivers are remeandered and the maintenance of flood plains enhanced, and biodiversity increased as there are urban green spaces and done over former industrial sites to provide green spaces, spectacular views, and bike paths. National parks and nature reserves such as the Eifel National Park and Teutoburg Forest Nature Park protect the habitats of lynx, wildcat, and migratory birds, making sure that, despite being in one of the busiest routes across Europe, some reserves of wilderness still thrive.

FAQs

Q.1: What is the highest point in North Rhine-Westphalia?

The Langenberg in the Rothaar Mountains, reaching 843 meters above sea level, is the state’s highest elevation.

Q.2: How many UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located in North Rhine-Westphalia?

North Rhine-Westphalia is home to six UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Q.3: Which former coal mine in Essen has been transformed into a cultural landmark and UNESCO World Heritage Site?

The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen is the region’s iconic industrial heritage site.

Q.4: Which airport handles the most passenger traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia?

Düsseldorf Airport is the busiest airport in North Rhine-Westphalia.