Duisburg is an independent city that lies at the confluence of
the Ruhr with the Rhine. The city is part of the Rhine-Ruhr
metropolitan region with a total of around ten million inhabitants
and belongs to both the Lower Rhine region and the Ruhr area. It is
located in the administrative district of Düsseldorf and with around
half a million inhabitants is the fifth largest city in the state of
North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and
Essen. The regional center takes 15th place on the list of major
cities in Germany. In 2010, Duisburg was the European Capital of
Culture as part of the Ruhr area.
Located at the starting
point of the historical Hellweg and first mentioned in a document in
883, the city developed into an urban trading center as early as the
Middle Ages, but lost considerable economic and political importance
in the 13th century due to the relocation of the Rhine, which cut
the city off from the river . In the 19th century, Duisburg grew
thanks to its favorable river location with the ports and the
proximity to the coal deposits in the Ruhr area on the basis of the
iron and steel producing industry to an important industrial
location. In terms of urban planning, Duisburg is strongly
characterized by industrial facilities of this time, some of which
are still in use today and some are integrated into parks, or, as in
the inner harbor, are used by companies and cultural establishments.
The first and third themed routes of the popular route of industrial
culture with numerous monuments lead through the Duisburg city area,
namely "Duisburg: City and Harbor" and "Duisburg: Industrial Culture
on the Rhine".
The port (operated by Duisburger Hafen AG)
with its center in the Ruhrort district is considered the largest
inland port in the world. It shapes the city's economy as well as
the iron and steel industry. Almost a third of the pig iron produced
in Germany comes from the eight Duisburg blast furnaces. Traditional
steel production and metal processing in Duisburg is increasingly
concentrating on the production of high-tech products. As a result
of this structural change (steel crisis), which has been ongoing
since the 1970s, the city suffers from high unemployment.
With the establishment of the Duisburg University of Applied
Sciences in 1972 - which was initially merged into the Gerhard
Mercator University of Duisburg and then into the University of
Duisburg-Essen - Duisburg gained in profile as a science and
high-tech location. The Mercator School of Management with an
economic focus was established on campus in 2005. Since 2006, the
university has had the NRW School of Governance on the Duisburg
campus, the first public governance school in Germany. Other
university locations in Duisburg are the University of Applied
Sciences for Public Administration, the Folkwang University of the
Arts and the FOM - University of Economics and Management.
At
the same time, local logistics as one of the hubs of Central Europe
is an important economic pillar of the city, at the intersection of
the Ruhr area and the Rhine and at the core of the central European
economic area.
Geographical location
Duisburg is located on the edge of the
low-lying hill country at the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine. The
urban area extends on both sides of these rivers, with the largest part
and the city center lying on the right bank of the Rhine, only the
borough of Rheinhausen and the larger part of the borough of
Homberg-Ruhrort-Baerl lying on the left bank of the Rhine. In the north
of the city, the Alte Emscher and the Kleine Emscher flow into the
Rhine.
Duisburg is classified as a regional center in state
planning. As a town on the Rhine, it belongs to the Rhineland Regional
Association (LVR), and as a town in the Ruhr area it is a member of the
Ruhr Regional Association (RVR). Duisburg is also part of the Rhine-Ruhr
metropolitan region and the Rhineland metropolitan region. Since
Düsseldorf is only part of the Lower Rhine region in an extended
definition, Duisburg is the largest city on the Lower Rhine.
The
highest point in the city is Haus Hartenfels at 82.52 m above sea level.
NN, the lowest point is 14.85 m above sea level. NN in Duisburg-Walsum
(Kurfürstenstraße). The average altitude of the city center is 33.5 m
above sea level. NN (Duisburg-Mitte, Königstrasse/corner of Hohe
Strasse).
A third of Duisburg's population lives in a polder area
due to mountain depressions below the water level of the Rhine -
protected by high Rhine dikes and groundwater pumping stations. The
level zero (bottom of the river bed) is in Ruhrort 16.09 m above sea
level. NN.
Location on the Rhine
In the course of its history,
the Duisburg area was constantly confronted with the shifting of the
Rhine, flooding and bank failures:
At the turn of the century, an old
Rhine loop - coming from the Roman Asciburgian (near Moers-Asberg and
Duisburg-Rheinhausen) - flowed through the area where the core of the
historic city of Duisburg developed at today's inner harbor.
In the
year 1000, the main branch of the river began to diverge from the old
Duisburg, although a side branch allowed access to the main branch for
over 300 years.
The districts on the right and left banks of the
Rhine, which later became part of Duisburg, were also affected by the
relocation of the Rhine:
Parts of the city area that today belongs to
Wanheimerort were initially on an island (an oorth) off Wanheim before
it landed on the eastern shore in the 18th century.
Until the 14th
century, Ruhrort lay west of the main arm on a Werth or an Oorth before
Homberg, where it belonged to the parish of Halen on the left bank of
the Rhine; Only through further shifts in the Rhine did Ruhrort lose its
island status and came to the right bank of the Rhine, where it was
finally granted its own parish.
The church village of Halen near
Baerl and Knipp Castle on a sandbank in front of it sank around 1595 in
the Rhine.
Parts of today's Beeckerwerth were initially located on a
large sandbank (on a donk), on which the first Knipp Castle, which was
destroyed by flooding in 1595, was located (which was later rebuilt on
safer grounds in Beeckerwerth).
The authors Tilmann Bechert
(Asciburgium excavations) and Joseph Milz (History of the City of
Duisburg) as well as the brochure of the Duisburg City Museum on the
occasion of the exhibition on Asciburgium running until March 2014 refer
to the new findings on the Rhine relocations near Duisburg. The
relocation of the main arm away from Duisburg, which had long been
assumed for the 13th century, therefore began shortly after the year
1000.
The map of the Rhine drawn by the cartographer Johann
Bucker in 1713 shows how the course and bank region of the Rhine have
changed both in comparison to the Middle Ages and in the last 300 years
of modern times.
In the present there is a Rhine promenade in
particular at the Rheinpark.
Types of use of the Duisburg city
area
As of December 31, 2009, the total land area of the city was
23,281.35 hectares. Of this, 8,544.06 hectares (36.7%) were buildings
and open spaces and 347.46 hectares (1.49%) were operational areas.
3,394.24 hectares (14.58%) of the urban area served for traffic.
44.69% of the area consisted of forest, water areas, agricultural areas,
parks and green spaces. Duisburg is one of the cities with an
above-average proportion of green space.
The population density
does not exceed 15,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. The population
density in Neudorf is around 10,000 inhabitants per square kilometer and
in Hochfeld around 15,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. Due to the
layout of the districts, the population density does not exceed 6,000
inhabitants per square kilometer.
neighboring communities
The
city of Duisburg borders to the west and north the cities of Moers,
Rheinberg and Dinslaken in the district of Wesel, to the east the
independent cities of Oberhausen and Mülheim an der Ruhr, to the south
the city of Ratingen in the district of Mettmann, the independent state
capital of Düsseldorf, and the city of Meerbusch in the Rhein-Kreis
Neuss and the independent city of Krefeld.
As early as 1973,
Duisburg merged with districts located downstream to form the Euregio
Rhein-Waal association. These include the Lower Rhine districts of Kleve
and Wesel, the cities of Düsseldorf, Arnhem and Nijmegen as well as some
Dutch communities near the border.
city outline
Since the
municipal reorganization of January 1, 1975, the Duisburg urban area has
been divided into 46 districts, which are spread over the seven
districts of Walsum, Hamborn, Meiderich/Beeck, Homberg/Ruhrort/Baerl,
Duisburg-Mitte, Rheinhausen and Duisburg-Süd. In local elections,
citizens elect a district council for each district, which has 19
members. In addition, each district has a district office.
The
Mitte district is the only district with a six-digit population
(105,961), making it the largest of the seven districts. He is followed
by Rheinhausen (77,933), Meiderich/Beeck (73,881), Süd (73,321) and
Hamborn (71,891). With 51,528 inhabitants, Duisburg's northernmost
district is Walsum, the second smallest, the smallest is
Homberg/Ruhrort/Baerl, where 41,153 people live.
With an area of
37.1 square kilometers, the district of Homberg/Ruhrort/Baerl is the
third-largest district in Duisburg; only Süd (49.84 km²) and Rheinhausen
(38.68 km²) are larger. The other districts have areas between 34.98 km²
and 20.84 km².
Due to its location in western Germany, Duisburg has a moderate
climate all year round. The total precipitation is therefore about 710
mm. This corresponds roughly to the national average. In addition,
Duisburg has a high average temperature, the German Weather Service
lists Duisburg together with Heidelberg as the warmest place in Germany.
Evidence of this is the officially valid measurement period, which
lasted from 1961 to 1990, during which the average temperature in
Duisburg was 10.9 °C. The high temperature is favored on the one hand by
the urban climate and on the other hand by the mild winter climate of
the Lower Rhine. This is influenced by the proximity to the North Sea
and the Atlantic low pressure areas.
The highest temperature ever
recorded in Germany was measured at the Duisburg-Baerl weather station
on July 25, 2019 at 41.2 °C. The city shares this record with
Tönisvorst, where the same temperature was recorded on the same day. The
lowest temperature ever measured in Duisburg is −19.6 °C, it was
recorded on January 6, 2009.