North Rhine-Westphalia

Flag
Statistics
Capital:	Düsseldorf
Area:	34,080 km²
Inhabitants:	18,060,211 (2002)
pop. density:	530 inh./km²
Homepage:	http://www.nrw.de/
ISO 3166-2:	DE-NW
Politics
Minister-President:	Peer Steinbrück (SPD)
Ruling party:	SPD/Green coalition
Map

Geography

North Rhine-Westphalia borders on (from the west and clockwise) Belgium, the Netherlands and the German states of Lower Saxony, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.

The state is centred on the sprawling Rhine-Ruhr urbanised region, in turn centred on the great Ruhr industrial complex, consisting of the cities of Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Bochum and Gelsenkirchen. All these cities form a huge agglomeration, that is grouped along the Ruhr river. The Ruhr is a tributary of the Rhine, which enters the state in the south and leaves northwest towards the Netherlands. Major cities on the Rhine are Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn.

For many people North Rhine-Westphalia is synonymous with industrial areas and agglomerating cities. They ignore that the greatest part of the state's area is covered with forests and fields. The southern parts of the Teutoburg Forest are located in the northeast. In the southwest North Rhine-Westphalia shares in a small part of the Eifel, located on the borders with Belgium and Rhineland-Palatinate. The southeast is occupied by the sparsely populated regions of Sauerland and Siegerland.

Main rivers, that run at least partially through North Rhine-Westphalia, include: Rhine, Ruhr, Ems, Lippe and Weser.

See also List of places in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The state consists of 5 administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke), divided into 31 districts (Kreise) and 23 district-free cities (kreisfreie Städte). Together North Rhine-Westphalia has 396 municipalities (1997), including the district-free cities, which are municipalities by themselves.

The districts of North Rhine-Westphalia:

Aachen Borken Coesfeld Düren Ennepe-Ruhr Rhein-Erft-Kreis Euskirchen Gütersloh Heinsberg Herford Hochsauerland	Höxter Cleves (Kleve) Lippe Märkischer Kreis Mettmann Minden-Lübbecke Neuss Oberbergischer Kreis Olpe Paderborn	Recklinghausen Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis Rhein-Sieg Siegen-Wittgenstein Soest Steinfurt Unna Viersen Warendorf Wesel

Furthermore there are 23 independent towns, which don't belong to any district:

Aachen Bielefeld Bochum Bonn Bottrop Cologne (Köln) Dortmund Duisburg

Düsseldorf Essen Gelsenkirchen Hagen Hamm Herne Krefeld Leverkusen

Mönchengladbach Mülheim Münster Oberhausen Remscheid Solingen Wuppertal

The districts are grouped into five Regierungsbezirke, belonging to one of two Kommunalverbände (formerly called Landschaftsverbände).

• Nordrhein
  • Cologne
  • Düsseldorf
• Westfalen-Lippe
  • Arnsberg
  • Münster
  • Detmold

History

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia was established by the British military administration in 1946. Originally it consisted of Westphalia and the northern parts of the Rhine Province, both formerly belonging to Prussia. In 1947 the former state of Lippe was merged with North Rhine-Westphalia, hence leading to the present borders of the state.

Flag

The flag of North Rhine-Westphalia is green-white-red with the combined coats of arms of the Prussian Rhine province (white line before green background), Westphalia (the white horse) and Lippe (the red rose).

According to legend the horse in the Westphalian coat of arms is the horse that the Saxonian leader Widukind rode after his baptism. Other theories attribute the horse to Henry the Lion.

List of Minister-Presidents of North Rhine-Westphalia

1. 1946 - 1947: Rudolf Amelunxen
2. 1947 - 1956: Karl Arnold (CDU)
3. 1956 - 1958: Fritz Steinhoff (SPD)
4. 1958 - 1966: Franz Meyers (CDU)
5. 1966 - 1978: Heinz Kühn (SPD)
6. 1978 - 1998: Johannes Rau (SPD)
7. 1998 - 2002: Wolfgang Clement (SPD)
8. since 2002: Peer Steinbrück (SPD)

External links

• Official governmental portal

Referenced By