Route of industrial culture - the myth of the Ruhr area

The Harkort factory at Wetter Castle around 1834

View from the blast furnace in the Duisburg-Nord landscape park

Nightingale colliery steam carrier

Central shaft 12 of the Zollverein colliery

Residential building on Borsigplatz

The Myth of the Ruhr Area is the name of theme route 22 of the Route of Industrial Culture , operated by the Regionalverband Ruhr (RVR).

The Ruhr area is often described in clichés - coal mining , steel production , allotment gardens , smoking chimneys , pigeon fanciers and football clubs, mines and ironworks , colliery settlements threatened with demolition and extremely rich industrial barons. The myth collects under names like black gold, Ruhrpott, Montan-Revier, Land der Thousand Feuer, Melting pot Kohlenpott. Many of them have their roots in the industrial history of the region, the traces of which this theme route leads to. Emblematic places, which are often burial sites, are listed as well as typical representatives of the mines, processing plants, settlements, villas and leisure activities. In the meantime, the myth of the Ruhr area is being marketed for tourism, also through the route of industrial culture itself. The ExtraSchicht is celebrated every year , in 2010 the Ruhr area was European Capital of Culture .