Finding the perfect place to visit on your tour of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, for it doesn’t fall short on places to visit. This is because North Rhine-Westphalia is home to many large cities. Their capital city is Düsseldorf and their largest city is Cologne. These are not the only two places you can visit in North Rhine-Westphalia for there are many other major cities there. These major cities would be Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Bielefeld, Aachen, Bonn, Bottrop, Bochum, Bergisch Gladbach, Mönchengladbach, Münster, Mülheim, Gelsenkirchen, Hagen, Krefeld, Hamm, Leverkusen, Herne, Neuss, Recklinghausen, Paderborn, Remscheid, Solingen, Siegen, Witten, and Wuppertal.

North Rhine-Westphalia can be found on the westernmost part of Germany and it is the largest Federal State of Germany in terms of population and economic output. North Rhine-Westphalia is home to over 18 million inhabitants and this large number of people contributes to about 22% of Germany’s gross domestic product in their economic output. North Rhine-Westphalia has a land area of 34,083 km2 or about 13,158 square miles. It also shares borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. North Rhine-Westphalia has also other borders to which are with the German states of Lower Saxony in the North and Northeast part, Rhineland-Palatinate in the Southwest and Hesse to the Southeast.

Geography

North Rhine-Westphalia is centered on the urbanized region called Rhine-Ruhr, to which contains the cities of Bonn, Düsseldorf, and Cologne, and also the Ruhr Area industrial complex. This Ruhr Area consists of the cities of Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, and Oberhausen.

North Rhine-Westphalia covers a distance of over 291 km from the north towards the south, and 266 km from the east towards the west. All over, the state’s borders covers 1,645 km. The countries of Belgium, The Netherlands, Lower Saxony, Hesse, and Rhineland Palatinate have a border in North Rhine-Westphalia in which Belgium covers 99 km of the border, 387 km for the Netherlands, 583 km to the Lower Saxony, 269 km to Hesse, and 307 km to the Rhineland Palatinate.

People would compare North Rhine-Westphalia with agglomerating cities and other industrial areas. Even still, the largest part of the state would be in agriculture, which would be almost 52% of the state is being used for it, and forests that cover 25% of the state. Some known forests in North Rhine-Westphalia are the Teutoburg Forest in the northeast part of the state, Nordrhein-Westafalen in the southwest which also shares part of it with the Eifel that is located on the borders of Rheinland-Pfalz and Belgium. Sauerland and Seigerland occupy the southeast part of the state, and the Northern European Lowlands occupies the northwestern areas of the state.

The shortest river on Germany can be found in this state, which is called The Pader, which can be found in the city of Paderborn. Other important rivers that run through North Rhine-Westphalia include Ruhr, Lippe, Rhine, Ems, and Weser.

History

North Rhine-Westphalia was established as a state during the British Military Administration on October 25, 1946. It was formerly consisted of Westphalia and northern parts of Rhine Province, to which both belonged to Prussia at that time. Lippe merged with North Rhine-Westphalia in 1947 that would lead to the present borders of the state.

On May 22, 2005, the North Rhine-Westphalia state election granted the CDU to an unexpected victor. The top candidate for the election, Jürgen Rüttgers, had built a new coalition government that consists of CDU and FDP that would replace the present government that was at that time headed by Peer Steinbrück. After which, Rüttgers was then elected as the new Prime Minister of the federal state on the 22nd of June of the year 2005.

Some Places to Visit

One of the places to visit while in North Rhine-Westphalia would be the Great Saint Martin Church. It is a Romanesque Catholic church that can be found in Cologne, Germany. The Great Saint Martin church was founded on about 960 AD on what was before the island on the Rhine that was then later transformed into the Benedictine Monastery. Now, the church includes a soaring crossing tower that would be like a landmark of Cologne’s Old Town. This crossing tower had been built in between the years of 1150 to the 1250s. During the World War II, the church had been badly damaged, but now has been restored.

Another good place to visit while in North Rhine-Westphalia is the Museum Ludwig. This particular museum in North Rhine-Westphalia is located in Cologne, Germany. The museum is a home to a great collection of modern art. Such collections include PopArt, Surrealism, and Abstract forms of art. This particular museum holds one of the largest Picasso collections in all of Europe. Other artists to be mentioned that has works in this museum are And Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

This museum was built on 1976 from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum as an independent institution. Originally, it incorporates the Sammlung Haubrich, which is a collection by Josef Haubrich during the years of 1914 to 1939 that was donated by the city of Cologne to be viewed by the public on the 2nd of May of the year 1946. Also, another collection of art that can be seen in the museum is the Sammlung Ludwig, which is an integral part of the museum that is a collection of Picasso.

When in the northern district of Düsseldorf, Mörsenbroich, try to visit the Arag-Tower or ARAG-Tower. It is a skyscraper tower that is an office. The headquarters of the European insurance group which is called Arag can be found in this tower. It took two architect offices, namely Foster and Partners and Rhode Kellermann Wawrowsky, to collaborate with the project at hand, while the managing the project was given command to Hochtief AG. The construction of the tower took place during the years between 1998 and 2001.

The all over cost for building this tower was over 46 million euros. The Arag-Tower is now the highest building in Duesseldorf with a height of 125 meters, after the Rheintower which is a telecommunications tower.