page_title: Essen
section_title: Coat of arms
hierarchical_section_title: Essen / Politics / Coat of arms
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Hotel Handelshof in Essen This is a photograph of an architectural monument.It is on the list of cultural monuments of Essen, no. 5
context_page_description: Essen is the central and second largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of 583,109 makes it the ninth largest city of Germany, as well as the fourth largest city of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. On the Ruhr and Emscher rivers, Essen geographically is part of the Rhineland and the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region. The Ruhrdeutsch regiolect spoken in the region has strong influences of both Low German and Low Franconian.
  Essen is seat to several of the region's authorities, as well as to eight of the 100 largest publicly held German corporations by revenue, including two DAX corporations. Essen is often considered the energy capital of Germany with E.ON and RWE, Germany's largest energy providers, both headquartered in the city. Essen is also known for its impact on the arts through the respected Folkwang University of the Arts, its Zollverein School of Management and Design, and the Red Dot industrial product design award. In early 2003, the universities of Essen and the nearby city of Duisburg were merged into the University of Duisburg-Essen with campuses in both cities and a university hospital in Essen.
context_section_description: The coat of arms of the city of Essen is a heraldic peculiarity. Granted in 1886, it is a so-called Allianzwappen (arms of alliance) and consists of two separate shields under a single crown. Most other coats of arms of cities show a wall instead of a crown. The crown, however, does not refer to the city of Essen itself, but instead to the secularized ecclesiastical principality of Essen under the reign of the princess-abbesses. The dexter (heraldically right) escutcheon shows the double-headed Imperial Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, granted to the city in 1623. The sinister (heraldically left) escutcheon is one of the oldest emblems of Essen and shows a sword that people believed was used to behead the city's patron Saints Cosmas and Damian. People tend to connect the sword in the left shield with one found in the Cathedral Treasury. This sword, however, is much more recent. A slightly modified and more heraldically correct version of the coat of arms can be found on the roof of the Handelshof hotel near the main station.
caption: The Handelshof Hotel with modified coat of arms and unofficial motto
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