Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region
| Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region | |
|---|---|
| State : |
 North Rhine-Westphalia
|
| Regional associations : | Rhineland , Westphalia |
| Administrative districts : |
Arnsberg , Münster , Düsseldorf , Cologne |
| Area : | 7,110 km² |
| Residents : | 10,642,890 (December 31, 2016) |
| Population density : | 1497 inhabitants / km² |
| The highest point: | 494 m above sea level NN ( Iserlohn ) |
| Lowest point: | 20 m above sea level NN ( Wesel ) |
| North South expansion: | 126 km |
| West-east expansion: | 121 km |
| geographical location : | 50 ° 44 ′ - 51 ° 49 ′ n. Br. 6 ° 17 ′ - 7 ° 59 ′ east. |
| Structure: | 20 independent cities , 11 districts |
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (MRR) is a polycentric agglomeration in North Rhine-Westphalia that is defined in the state development plan and extends along the eponymous rivers Rhine and Ruhr . Of currently eleven metropolitan regions in Germany , it is the most populous and densely populated metropolitan region with over 10 million inhabitants and is one of the 40 largest in the world . The Rhine-Ruhr region is one of the five megacities in Europe; there are 36 metropolitan regions with over ten million inhabitants worldwide.
The metropolitan region forms the center of the European mega-region of the “ blue banana ” and ranks twelfth in the global gross domestic product ranking .
The population centers of the region are the Ruhr area , Cologne / Bonn , Düsseldorf and the Bergisch city triangle .
structure
The urban area legally defined by the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region in the state development plan extends along the rivers Rhine and Ruhr. The Ruhr area runs along the Ruhr axis . The sub-area along the Rhine, for example from Wesel to Bonn , is commonly referred to as the Rhine rail . The settlement body within the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, which also includes settlement areas to the left of the Rhine, for example in the Cologne, Mönchengladbach and Krefeld areas, or the settlement areas of the major cities of Wuppertal, Remscheid and Solingen on the right bank of the Rhine, is not clearly contoured, but rather shows diffuse edges due to the uneven settlement density and inner turning points.
Alternatively, the terms Rhine-Ruhr or Rhine-Ruhr conurbation are occasionally used. However, it often remains unclear whether this only refers to the more densely populated core area of the metropolitan region, i.e. the more or less contiguous settlement bodies that extend from Hamm in the east to Mönchengladbach in the west and from Bonn in the south to Wesel in the north, or whether also spaces on the flowing borders into Bergisches Land , Sauerland and Münsterland are conceptually included.
Spatial planning
As early as 1952, the city of Düsseldorf had created the concept of a Rhine-Ruhr urban landscape , which looked at the agglomeration of the cities on the Rhine and Ruhr in order to represent the favored location and central function of Düsseldorf. The metropolitan region in its current importance was delimited by the German Ministerial Conference for Spatial Planning (MKRO) in 1995 and recommended for use in spatial planning . The state of North Rhine-Westphalia then took up this recommendation in its state development plan and legally stipulated planning statements on the European metropolitan region Rhine-Ruhr as a goal of spatial planning in order to identify a conurbation with particular central local importance for public and private planning. At the European level of spatial planning, the spatial unit of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region has been incorporated into the European spatial development concept .
In the state development plan, the metropolitan region is defined specifically for the municipality, covers an area of around 7,000 km² with around 10 million inhabitants and is located entirely in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia . This makes it by far the most populous and densely populated metropolitan region in Germany and one of the five largest metropolitan regions in Europe. The Rhine-Ruhr area is sometimes referred to as a megacity . Rhine-Ruhr lies in the middle of the central European economic area, the so-called blue banana . The state capital Düsseldorf has the highest degree of global interdependence in the sense of a global city within the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.
Municipalities and residents
According to the official definition, the following list shows all municipalities belonging to the metropolitan region. In some districts only certain municipalities belong to the region. The only independent cities in North Rhine-Westphalia that do not belong to this metropolitan region are Aachen , Bielefeld and Münster .
| city | Residents Dec. 31, 2016 |
Area in km² | Inhabitants per km² |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bochum (BO) | 364.920 | 145.44 | 2,509.08 |
| Bonn (BN) | 322.125 | 141.22 | 2,281.02 |
| Bottrop (BOT) | 117,409 | 100.61 | 1,166.97 |
| Dortmund (DO) | 585.813 | 280.39 | 2,089.28 |
| Duisburg (DU) | 499.845 | 232.81 | 2,147.01 |
| Dusseldorf (D) | 613.230 | 217.01 | 2,825.81 |
| Food (E) | 583.084 | 210.38 | 2,771.58 |
| Gelsenkirchen (GE) | 262,528 | 104.86 | 2,503.60 |
| Hagen (HA) | 188.266 | 160.36 | 1,174.02 |
| Hamm (HAM) | 179,571 | 226.26 | 793.65 |
| Herne (HER) | 156,774 | 51.41 | 3,049.48 |
| Cologne (K) | 1,075,935 | 405.15 | 2,655.65 |
| Krefeld (KR) | 226.812 | 137.76 | 1,646.43 |
| Leverkusen (LEV) | 163.113 | 78.85 | 2,068.65 |
| Moenchengladbach (MG) | 260.925 | 170.45 | 1,530.80 |
| Mülheim an der Ruhr (MH) | 170.936 | 91.29 | 1,872.45 |
| Oberhausen (OB) | 211,382 | 77.04 | 2,743.80 |
| Remscheid (RS) | 110,611 | 74.60 | 1,482.72 |
| Solingen (SG) | 158.908 | 89.46 | 1,776.30 |
| Wuppertal (W) | 352,390 | 168.39 | 2,092.70 |
| Sum / average | 6,604,577 | 3,163.74 | 2,087.59 |
| District city / municipality | Residents Dec. 31, 2016 |
Area in km² | Inhabitants per km² |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Mettmann (ME) | |||
| Erkrath | 44,413 | 26.89 | 1,651.65 |
| Haan | 30,414 | 24.22 | 1,255.74 |
| Heiligenhaus | 26,010 | 27.47 | 946.85 |
| Hilden | 55,569 | 25.96 | 2,140.56 |
| Langenfeld (Rhineland) | 58,563 | 41.10 | 1,424.89 |
| Mettmann | 38,734 | 42.52 | 910.96 |
| Monheim am Rhein | 40,814 | 23.10 | 1,766.84 |
| Ratingen | 87,158 | 88.72 | 982.39 |
| Velbert | 81,822 | 74.90 | 1,092.42 |
| Wuelfrath | 21,273 | 32.23 | 660.04 |
| District of Unna (UN) | |||
| Bergkamen | 48,543 | 44.80 | 1,083.55 |
| Bonen | 18,106 | 38.02 | 476.22 |
| Fröndenberg / Ruhr | 20,908 | 56.21 | 371.96 |
| Holzwickede | 17.160 | 22.36 | 767.44 |
| Came | 43,672 | 40.93 | 1,066.99 |
| Luenen | 86,274 | 59.18 | 1,457.82 |
| Swords | 46,754 | 56.20 | 831.92 |
| Selm | 25,714 | 60.34 | 426.15 |
| Unna | 57,891 * | 88.52 | 653.99 |
| Werne | 29,858 | 76.08 | 392.46 |
| Ennepe-Ruhr district (EN) | |||
| Ennepetal | 29,901 | 57.42 | 520.74 |
| Gevelsberg | 30,966 | 26.29 | 1,177.86 |
| Hattingen | 54,744 | 71.39 | 766.83 |
| Herdecke | 22,768 | 22.40 | 1,016.43 |
| Schwelm | 28,577 | 20.50 | 1,394.00 |
| Sprockhövel | 25,032 | 47.79 | 523.79 |
| Weather | 27,785 | 31.47 | 882.90 |
| Witten | 96,781 | 72.37 | 1,337.31 |
| Märkischer Kreis (MK) | |||
| Hemer | 34,223 * | 67.56 | 506.56 |
| Iserlohn | 93.197 | 125.50 | 742.61 |
| Menden (Sauerland) | 53,315 | 86.06 | 619.51 |
| District of Recklinghausen (RE) | |||
| Castrop-Rauxel | 74.004 | 51.66 | 1,432.52 |
| Dates | 34,555 | 66.08 | 522.93 |
| Dorsten | 75.196 | 171.19 | 439.25 |
| Gladbeck | 75,532 | 35.91 | 2,103.37 |
| Herten | 61,461 | 37.32 | 1,646.86 |
| Marl | 83,737 | 87.63 | 955.57 |
| Oer-Erkenschwick | 31,569 | 38.69 | 815.95 |
| Recklinghausen | 114.003 | 66.43 | 1,716.14 |
| Waltrop | 29,245 | 46.99 | 622.37 |
| Rhein-Erft district (BM) | |||
| Bruehl | 44,294 | 36.12 | 1,226.30 |
| Cheeky | 52.171 | 45.11 | 1,156.53 |
| Huerth | 59,272 | 51.17 | 1,158.33 |
| Wesseling | 35,768 | 23.37 | 1,530.51 |
| Rhine district Neuss (NE) | |||
| Dormagen | 64.016 | 85.41 | 749.51 |
| Grevenbroich | 62,977 | 102.46 | 614.65 |
| Kaarst | 43,218 | 37.40 | 1,155.56 |
| Korschenbroich | 32,947 | 55.26 | 596.22 |
| Meerbusch | 55.091 | 64.38 | 855.72 |
| Neuss | 152,882 | 99.48 | 1,536.81 |
| Rhein-Sieg district (SU) | |||
| Alfter | 23,531 | 34.77 | 676.76 |
| Bornheim | 47,749 | 82.71 | 577.31 |
| Niederkassel | 37,828 | 35.79 | 1,056.94 |
| Saint Augustine | 56,115 | 34.23 | 1,639.35 |
| Siegburg | 41,034 | 23.46 | 1,749.10 |
| Troisdorf | 74,616 | 62.17 | 1,200.19 |
| Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (GL) | |||
| Bergisch Gladbach | 111,341 | 83.12 | 1,339.52 |
| Burscheid | 18,288 | 27.38 | 667.93 |
| Leichlingen (Rhineland) | 28.101 | 37.33 | 752.77 |
| District of Viersen (VIE) | |||
| Kempen | 34,865 | 68.81 | 506.69 |
| Tönisvorst | 29,235 | 44.33 | 659.49 |
| Viersen | 76,384 | 91.07 | 838.74 |
| I want to | 50,932 | 67.77 | 751.54 |
| District Wesel (WES) | |||
| Dinslaken | 67,726 | 47.67 | 1,420.73 |
| Kamp-Lintfort | 37,414 | 63.16 | 592.37 |
| Moers | 103,881 | 67.69 | 1,534.66 |
| Neukirchen-Vluyn | 27,200 | 43.48 | 625.57 |
| Rheinberg | 31,356 | 75.15 | 417.25 |
| Voerde | 36,273 | 53.48 | 678.25 |
| Wesel | 60,797 | 122.53 | 496.18 |
| total | 4,038,313 | 3,946.66 | 1023.22 |
The population figures marked with * differ from the official figures from June 30, 2016.
economy
Up until the 1960s, the Ruhr area, shaped by the mining industry , was the undisputed economic center of North Rhine-Westphalia. After the onset of structural change caused by the coal crisis, the education / research and service sector gained more and more importance.
The Rhine rail was less affected by structural change. After the federal government and some ministries had moved to Berlin, Bonn was able to statistically compensate for every job lost as a result. Cologne was able to assert itself as a trade fair and service location. In terms of GDP per capita, Düsseldorf is the most economically powerful city in the metropolitan region and ranks second in Germany after Frankfurt; the centrality is the highest in all of Germany.
Due to the polycentricity of the region, the location of the cities must be viewed as a coherent megacity . Most cities are direct neighbors to each other, for example Duisburg with Düsseldorf, Krefeld, Mülheim and Oberhausen or Cologne with Leverkusen, so that an isolated observation and assessment of individual cities has little informative value. This becomes clear through the naming and cross-city activities at many companies and institutions that relate to several cities, such as Sparkasse KölnBonn , Cologne-Düsseldorfer Rheinschifffahrt , Cologne / Bonn Airport or Ruhrbahn (Essen and Mülheim).
Regarded as a megacity, the Rhine-Ruhr is the actual "DAX capital" of Germany (as of June 2020). Nine out of 30 companies in the largest German share index come from there, and thus more than from any other metropolitan region. In the MDAX , the Rhine-Ruhr shares the top position with the Munich Metropolitan Region , each with eleven companies.
traffic
The metropolitan region is an important hub for all modes of transport.
Street
Numerous highways of major continental importance meet in the Rhine-Ruhr area, such as the A 1 (Heiligenhafen - Hamburg - Cologne - Saarbrücken), A 2 (Oberhausen - Hanover - Magdeburg - Berlin), A 3 (Emmerich - Cologne - Frankfurt am Main - Nuremberg - Passau) and A 4 (Aachen - Cologne - Dresden - Görlitz). The A 3 in the Cologne area is considered to be the most heavily used motorway in Germany. The A1, A3 and A4 also meet at the Kölner Ring. At Kreuz Oberhausen , A 2 and A 3 and meet at Kamener Cross in Dortmund A 1 and A meet second
Nationally and regionally important motorways in Rhine-Ruhr are the A 31 (Bottrop - Leer - Emden), A 40 (Ruhrschnellweg: Venlo (NL) - Duisburg - Essen - Dortmund), A 42 (Emscherschnellweg: Kamp-Lintfort - Duisburg - Dortmund ), A 43 (Wuppertal - Bochum - Münster), A 44 (Aachen - Mönchengladbach - Kassel), A 45 (Sauerland line: Dortmund - Siegen - Seligenstadt), A 46 (Heinsberg - Wuppertal - Bestwig / Hagen - Iserlohn - Hemer), A 52 (Roermond (NL) - Düsseldorf - Marl), A 57 (Nijmegen - Krefeld - Cologne), A 59 (Dinslaken - Duisburg - Düsseldorf - Bonn) and A 61 (Venlo (NL) - Koblenz - Hockenheim).
The trunk road network is consolidated by the smaller, 3-digit highways A 445 ((Hamm) - Werl - Arnsberg), A 516 (Oberhausen - Oberhausen-Eisenheim), A 524 (Breitscheid - Duisburg-Süd), A 535 ( Sonnborner Kreuz - Velbert ), A 540 (Jüchen-Grevenbroich), A 542 (Monheim - Langenfeld), A 544 (AK Aachen - Aachen-Europaplatz), A 553 (AK Bliesheim - Brühl), A 555 (Cologne-South - Bonn ), A 559 (AD Köln-Porz - Köln-Deutz), A 560 (Hennef - Sankt Augustin), A 562 (AK Bonn-Ost - Bonn-Friesdorf) and A 565 (Meckenheim - Bonn).
Although there are numerous motorways in the Rhine-Ruhr area, the motorways are extremely prone to congestion. In particular, transit traffic from the Netherlands and Belgium to Eastern Europe is a burden on the motorways.
rail
There are six category 1 train stations in the metropolitan region , three of which are among the ten most frequented train stations in Germany:
| railway station | Long-distance trains | Local trains | S-Bahn | Trains, suburban trains | traveler |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cologne Central Station | 243 | 521 | 466 | 1,230 | ≈280,000 |
| Cologne Fair / Deutz | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Düsseldorf Central Station | 169 | 423 | 550 | 1,142 | ≈250,000 |
| Dortmund Central Station | 195 | 485 | 302 | 982 | ≈130,000 |
| Duisburg Central Station | 150 | 351 | 142 | 844 | ≈90,000 |
| Essen Central Station | 123 | 198 | 403 | 799 | ≈170,000 |
(all information per day)
Station category 2 includes the stations Bochum , Bonn , Düsseldorf Airport , Gelsenkirchen , Hagen , Hamm , Mönchengladbach , Neuss , Oberhausen , Siegburg / Bonn , Solingen and Wuppertal .
Local public transport in the metropolitan region is divided into three transport associations . The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr is responsible for local public transport in the Ruhr area , in the Bergisch city triangle as well as in the middle and lower Lower Rhine , the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg in the Cologne - Bonn area. The district of Unna , the Märkische district and Hamm are assigned to the VRL . By the mid-2020s, it is planned to improve regional traffic in the metropolitan area through the gradual introduction of the Rhein-Ruhr-Express (RRX), so that in the core area between Düsseldorf Central Station and Duisburg Central Station an RRX runs every ten minutes at the local transport price.
air
The region has two international airports and one regional one.
In terms of passenger volume, Düsseldorf Airport ranks third in Germany with 25 million passengers (after Frankfurt am Main with 70 million and Munich with 47 million passengers, as of 2019); in terms of freight volume, Cologne / Bonn ranks third with 0.8 million tons of air freight in 2008 3 (after Frankfurt am Main with 2.1 million tons and Leipzig with 1.2 million tons).
| Airport | Passengers (2019) | Freight (2019) | category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dusseldorf Airport | 20.34 million | 81,794 t | international |
| Cologne / Bonn Airport | 12.95 million | 859,368 t | international |
| Dortmund Airport | 1.82 million | 26 t | regional |
water
The Rhine is the most important inland waterway in Europe, the port of Duisburg is the largest inland port in the world and the Port of Dortmund is the largest canal port in Europe. There is also a large navigable canal network in the Ruhr area :
politics
Unlike in the case of the Rhine-Main area with Frankfurt am Main as the clearly strongest center, the Rhine-Ruhr has numerous cities of comparable size and importance. This polycentricity often leads to strong rivalries between these cities. In addition, there are competing concepts and self-perceptions of regional identity even within the Ruhr area and the Rhine from Bonn to Wesel . This church tower policy has so far prevented a uniform appearance in the region. The growing together of the metropolitan region, often verbally striven for by politicians, remains limited to local initiatives, such as mergers of the transport companies or the port companies of Düsseldorf and Neuss . In addition, the administrative structure of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia prevents uniform planning and administration of the metropolitan region. However, the cities of Bochum, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Mülheim an der Ruhr and Oberhausen have achieved a new quality of intermunicipal cooperation in planning with the establishment of a regional land use plan .
The designation of the region as a metropolitan region is being promoted primarily by the state government. In the state development plan , the maintenance and expansion of the international competitiveness of the metropolitan region is expressly listed as a priority goal.
With the draft of a new state development plan (draft of June 25, 2013), the state planning of North Rhine-Westphalia intends to designate the entire national territory of the state as the metropolitan region of North Rhine-Westphalia .
Legal term
In terms of state planning law, the European metropolitan region Rhine-Ruhr is spatially determined in the state development plan for North Rhine-Westphalia (Part A) and factually in the form of textual “goals” under section BI2. treated. On this basis, the legal significance of the European metropolitan region Rhine-Ruhr as a plan statement of spatial planning and state planning is to be assessed. It remains to be seen which concrete legal consequences the corresponding plan statements of the state development plan trigger.
literature
- Ewald Gläßer, Martin W. Schmied, Claus-Peter Woitschützke: North Rhine-Westphalia. Justus Perthes Verlag, Gotha 1997, ISBN 3-623-00691-2 .
Web links
- Institute for State and Urban Development Research
- Information and technology North Rhine-Westphalia
- Analysis of suitable comparison regions for the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (PDF file; 1.31 MiB)
- Initiative Group European Metropolitan Regions in Germany: Regional Monitoring 2006 (The demarcation there is based on district boundaries, so does not match the actual one! PDF file)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Official population figures
- ↑ Figure 13 in: Werner Durth : Düsseldorf: Demonstration of Modernity . In: Klaus von Beyme u. a. (Ed.): New cities from ruins. German post-war urban development . Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-7913-1164-6 , p. 243.
- ↑ https://www.1von150.de/dortmund/
- ^ State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia: LEP NRW. State development plan North Rhine-Westphalia . Draft (as of June 25, 2013) , p. 27, accessed on the nrw.de portal on August 31, 2013.
- ↑ State Development Plan North Rhine-Westphalia Archived copy ( memento of the original from August 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 30, 2010.
