Special Sub-Topic: The Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr Valley) Click Here To Play: The Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr Valley)

The Ruhrgebiet is home to the annual beer festival that is the Oktoberfest.

f. The Oktoberfest is celebrated in Munich, Bavaria. Although the Ruhrgebiet has several big breweries, there is no major beer festival.

Which industries is the Ruhrgebiet historically famous for?

coal mining, steel, metallurgy. Though almost all coal mines have been closed, and just a few of the old steelworks are still in use, these industries were what turned this Westphalia region into a huge industrial conurbation

This city was famous for coal-mining. In 1999 the last coking plant closed down. Nowadays the city is in decline with high unemployment rates. It is located at the river Emscher and the Rhein-Herne-Channel. Which city is this?

Gelsenkirchen. As you can see from the question above being part of the Ruhrgebiet does not necessarily mean that the city is located on the river Ruhr.

This city is famous for its steelworks, its brewing industry (the highest output in Germany, second highest in Europe) and its soccer club (with the highest total of attendance in Europe). Located on the Ruhr River, adjacent to Hagen, Herdecke, Bochum, Witten, Schwerte, Holzwickede, Unna, Kamen, Castrop-Rauxel, Waltrop and Lünen. Which city am I talking of?

Dortmund. Dortmund was given city status in 1236, though there have been settlements that date back to the bronze age. A major trade route ("the Hellweg") of late-Roman and medieval times ran through Dortmund. Today the industry has changed to insurances, banking and information technology. It will not be long before the last steelwork has been closed.

What part of the Ruhrgebiet is the actual Ruhr Valley (the part where the river Ruhr runs through a hilly landscape, called Ruhrtal in Germany)? Choose the correct cities!

Hattingen,Witten, Wetter, Herdecke, Hagen, Bochum. There are some other cities which belong to the Ruhrtal in geographical terms, but I left them out for brevity´s sake. Here began, especially in Witten and Wetter, the industrial revolution in the Ruhrgebiet.

The Ruhrgebiet is one of the world´s biggest cultural regions, with a high concentration of theaters, museums, concert halls and universities.

t. 200 museums, 120 theaters, 100 concert halls, 19 universities and colleges in an area of 1712 square miles. Some say it is only second to the Los Angeles Area, but I couldn´t find any comparative statistics on this topic.

This city is located at the Rhine, in the western-most part of the Ruhrgebiet, not far from the Netherlands. The largest domestic port in Europe is located there. Nowadays it is the largest steel producer in Germany. Which city am I talking of?

Duisburg. Duisburg is the third biggest city of the Ruhrgebiet with 506,000 inhabitants. #1,#2 Dortmund, Essen: appr. 590,000

How many people live approximately in the Ruhrgebiet?

5.4 million. That´s two million more than Berlin. The numbers are dwindling, though, because of the slow transformation from the former industries to newer ones. Which is a problem especially in the northern parts of the Ruhrgebiet.

The Ruhrgebiet is a Bundesland (a state of the Federal Republic of Germany, like Texas is a state of the USA).

f. It´s not only NOT a federal state, it´s even not one of the administrative sub-divisions of a state (called Regierungbezirk in German, like multiple counties formed to a super-county). In fact, the area belongs to three different of these (Münster, Arnsberg, Düsseldorf). The Ruhrgebiet, though, is bigger (in terms of inhabitants and GDP) than several of the German federal states.

In which Bundesland (federal state) is the Ruhrgebiet located?

North Rhine-Westphalia. This Bundesland borders on Belgium and the Netherlands, and has the largest population of all federal states.