Essen

**Essen** (; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: _Esse_, () is a German city in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is on the Ruhr River and it is near Cologne, Duisburg and Bochum. Essen has 585,000 inhabitants. Together with Dortmund, Essen is the biggest city of the Ruhr area with its 5,000,000 inhabitants. Essen is often called the shopping city (_Einkaufsstadt_) because there are so many malls and shops in it.

## Location of Essen

Essen is in North Rhine-Westphalia and part of the Ruhr area, where eleven cities and four districts are. The rivers Ruhr and Emscher flow through the city. The lake _Baldeney_ is part of the Ruhr. Essen's neighbour cities are Oberhausen, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Ratingen, Heiligenhaus and Velbert in the Rhineland; and Hattingen, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Gladbeck and Bottrop in Westphalia. Other near cities are Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Dortmund and Münster.

## Politics

Because of the large number of coal mine workers in Essen, the SPD, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, always was very strong in Essen. During the time of National Socialism, the Nazi Party installed the mayors. But from 1999 to 2009, the Christian Democratic Party ruled the city with the mayor Dr.Wolfgang Reiniger. At the local elections of 2009, the SPD's candidate Reinhard Paß became the new mayor.

## Famous things in Essen

- Villa Hügel (the villa of the family _Krupp_)
- Cathedral (Münster) (head of the _Roman Catholic Diocese of Essen_. In the _Domschatzkammer_, the dome treasure chamber, is the _Golden Madonna of Essen_)
- Old Synagogue (_Alte Synagoge_)
- Lichtburg (the oldest cinema of Germany)
- Zeche Zollverein (Zollverein Coal Mine, part of the _UNESCO World Heritage Sites_ since 2001)
- Folkwang museum (a big musum with a famous music academy)
- Werden abbey (a monastery from the _Order of Saint Benedict_, founded in 800)
- Aalto theatre (the greatest theatre of Essen, built by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto)
- Essen philharmonic orchestra (this building, also known as _Saalbau_, is next to the _Aalto theatre_)

## History of Essen

Around 850, Saint Altfrid founded the _Damenstift_, an abbey for women, ruled by a prince abbess. In this time the cathedral of Essen was built. In those days the name of the city was _Assindia_ in Latin. Later it changed over _Essendia_ and _Essend_ to _Essen_. 1377 Essen became a _free imperial city_. At this time, Essen was just a small city in a region where few people lived. The city became more important when the Industrial Revolution began. In 1811, _Friedrich Krupp_ founded a small steel factory in Essen which was fast growing. The city population also grew, and 80 years after the foundation of Krupp's steel work, Essen was a big city with 100,000 inhabitants. Because in the region of the Ruhr River much coal was found, many coal mines were founded in Essen and other near cities. Great industrial families like the _Krupp_s, the _Haniel_s and the _Grillo_s gave money for cultural buildings like the Grillo theatre and the Folkwang museum. Because of its big industry, Essen was destroyed with bombs in the Second World War. Many people gave their lives, and many buildings were destroyed. Not all were rebuilt after WW2. But because the coal mining industry ended mining in Essen in the 1970s (coal from abroad was getting cheaper), the city was getting poor. The _Strukturwandel_ (structural change) saved Essen. Old collieries like _Zeche Zollverein_ became museums or theatres. In 2003, the universities of Essen and Duisburg joined as the university Duisburg-Essen.
In 2010 Essen was _Kulturhauptstadt Europas_ (European Capital of Culture) together with Istanbul and Pécs in Hungary.

## Media in Essen

The _WDR_ (_Westdeutscher Rundfunk/Western German Broadcasting_) has a TV-station in Essen. The two biggest newspapers, the _WAZ_ (_Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung/Western German common newspaper_) and the _NRZ_, the _Neue Ruhr Zeitung/New Ruhr newspaper_ (at the lower Rhine region_Neue Rhein Zeitung/New Rhein newspaper_) are in the city. Both newspapers belong to the WAZ-media group. Essen also has a radio station named _Radio Essen_.

## Boroughs of Essen

Essen has nine districts (_Bezirke_) and 50 boroughs (_Stadtteile_). The most famous and most known are _Kettwig_, until 1975 a separate town and not part of Essen, with the _Altstadt_ of Kettwig, where many timber framing houses are (_Fachwerkhäuser_). Also well-known is _Werden_. It lays like Kettwig in the south of the city and is the oldest borough of Essen. The _Werden abbey_ stands here. In Essen-_Rüttenscheid_ there are many cultural buildings (like the _Folkwang_ or the _Ruhrland_ museum). The WDR-studio and Essen's trade fair, the _Gruga_ are also in Rüttenscheid. In the north of Essen is _Katernberg_, where in the past the coal mine workers lived. Here is _Zeche Zollverein_. In Katernberg, many houses were built by the Krupp family for their workers. Another big coal mine worker's borough, perhaps the biggest, is _Margarethenhöhe_ near Rüttenscheid. It is named after Margarethe Krupp, wife of Friedrich Alfred Krupp. The Krupps wanted their workers to be absolutely dependent on them. So they built houses and malls for them, where they should spend their money, what they got from Krupp, again to the industrials. Today Margarethenhöhe is one of the most beautiful boroughs of Essen. Another big borough of Essen is _Steele_ in the east of the city, that was in the 19th and early 20th century a city as big as Essen. In the west of Essen is _Borbeck_, which was long separate from Essen. In Borbeck is the great Borbeck Castle (_Schloss Borbeck_). The people of Borbeck speak their own regional dialect, the _Borbecker Platt_.

The nine districts of Essen are:
- _Bezirk I (Stadtmitte/Frillendorf/Huttrop)_
- _Bezirk II (Rüttenscheid/Bergerhausen/Rellinghausen/Stadtwald)_
- _Bezirk III (Essen-West)_
- _Bezirk IV (Borbeck)_
- _Bezirk V (Altenessen/Karnap/Vogelheim)_
- _Bezirk VI (Katernberg/Schonnebeck/Stoppenberg)_
- _Bezirk VII (Steele/Kray)_
- _Bezirk VIII (Ruhrhalbinsel)_
- _Bezirk IX (Werden/Kettwig/Bredeney)_

## Famous people in Essen

The most known people from Essen are the actor Heinz Rühmann, whose parents were the owner of Essen's famous hotel _Handelshof_ near the Central Station (_Hauptbahnhof)_, Carl Humann, explorer of the Great Altar of Pergamon, Karl Baedeker, a publisher whose company made many books for tourists (_Baedeker_), Alfred Krupp and Franz Dinndendahl, who made the first steam machine in the Ruhr area. These people were born in the city. Other people who were not born in Essen but lived and worked there a long time are Berthold Beitz, who saved the Krupp company from the ruin, Wilhelm Busch, a famous poet and painter or Gustav Heinemann, a German politician who was mayor of Essen and federal president of Germany. Other people like Otto von Bismarck and Paul von Hindenburg were honorary people in Essen.

## Sport

The most popular sport in Germany is _Association football_ or _soccer_. The most important soccer clubs of Essen are _Rot-Weiß Essen (RWE)_ and _Schwarz-Weiß Essen_. They play in the 4th and the 5th league. More successfully is the women's association football club _SG Essen-Schönebeck_ that plays in the first _Bundesliga_.
The second big sport is team handball. _TUSEM Essen_ is the most important club in Essen.
The most popular ice hockey club is named _ESC Moskitos Essen_ and the biggest basketball club _ETB Wohnbau Baskets Essen_.
Essen also has many table tennis and swimming clubs.

## Twin towns

Essen's twin towns are:
- - Sunderland, since 1949
- - Tampere, since 1960
- - Grenoble, since 1974
- - Nizhny Novgorod, since 1991
- - Tel Aviv-Yafo, since 1991

## Infobox (german location)

- **art**: city
- **image photo**: Villa Hügel, Essen, 20071222.jpg
- **image caption**: Villa Hügel near the river Ruhr
- **wappen**: DEU Essen COA.svg
- **image flag**: Flagge Essen.svg
- **bundesland**: North Rhine-Westphalia
- **regierungsbezirk**: Düsseldorf Government Region, Düsseldorf
- **kreis**: urban
- **höhe**: 116
- **fläche**: 210.32
- **einwohner**: 581406
- **stand**: 2007-03-31
- **pop metro**: 5.302.179
- **plz**: 45001-45359
- **vorwahl**: 0201, 02054 (Essen-Kettwig, Kettwig)
- **kfz**: E
- **gemeindeschlüssel**: 05 1 13 000
- **gliederung**: 9 districts, 50 boroughs
- **bürgermeister**: Thomas Kufen
- **bürgermeistertitel**: Oberbürgermeister
- **partei**: CDU
- **ruling party1**: CDU
- **ruling party2**: SPD