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The Ruhr Area, also called simply '''Ruhr''', ( German ''Ruhrgebiet'', colloquial ''Ruhrpott'', ''Kohlenpott'' or ''Pott'') is an Urban Area in North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany , consisting of a number of large formerly industrial cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, and Lippe to the north. Southwest it borders the Bergisches Land . The area, with some 5.3 million people, is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area of more than 12 million people. Going from west to east, the area includes the city boroughs of ). HISTORY Towns in the area first grew during the for 2010. In January 1923 French forces Occupied The Ruhr area as a means of reprisal after Germany proved incapable of fulfilling Reparation payments demanded by the Versailles Treaty. The German government answered with "passive resistance," which meant that coal miners and railway workers refused to obey any instructions by the occupation forces. Production and transportation came to a standstill, but the financial consequences completely ruined public finances in Germany and passive resistance was called off in late 1923. In World War II , the Allies mounted a campaign specifically to encircle and capture the Ruhr Area. This effort succeeded in surrounding the entire area, trapping several hundred thousand '' Wehrmacht '' troops within what was known as the " Ruhr Pocket ." Due to its economic significance, the region was very heavily bombed during the War and some of its towns ( Dortmund , for example) were among the most devastated cities in Germany. Following the German unconditional surrender after World War II, the Ruhr area led a perilous existence. The was imposed on the Germans as a condition for permitting them to establish the Federal Republic Of Germany .Amos Yoder, ''"The Ruhr Authority and the German Problem"'', The Review of Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jul., 1955), pp. 345-358 (see also the International Authority For The Ruhr (IAR)). In the end, the beginning of the Cold War led to increased German control of the area, although permanently limited by the pooling of German coal and steel into a multinational community in 1951 (see European Coal And Steel Community ). The nearby Saar Area , containing much of Germany's remaining coal deposits, was handed over by the U.S. to economic administration by France as a protectorate in 1947 and did not politically return to Germany until January 1957, with economic reintegration occurring a few years later. Parallel to the question of political control of the Ruhr, the Allies conducted an effort to decrease German industrial potential by limitations on production and dismantling of factories and steel plants, predominantly in the Ruhr. (see also The Industrial Plans For Germany ). By 1950, after the virtual completion of the by then much watered-down "level of industry" plans, equipment had been removed from 706 Manufacturing Plants in the west and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6,700,000 tons.Frederick H. Gareau "Morgenthau's Plan for Industrial Disarmament in Germany" The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun., 1961), pp. 517-534 Dismantling finally ended in 1951. After Cold War tensions increased, it was anticipated that a Red Army thrust into Western Europe would begin in the Fulda Gap , and would have the Ruhr Area as a primary target. STRUCTURAL CHANGE After the traditional industries of coal and steel became less and less important, the whole Ruhr Area was faced with a continuous and difficult structural change ("Strukturwandel"), starting with the coal crisis in 1958 and lasting till today and into the future. Between 1980 and 2002, around 500,000 jobs were lost in the traditional industries. The introduction of the engineering industry and especially the service sector is illustrative of the structural change. Currently, the service sector shows the biggest prospect for re-creating the lost jobs. Tourism is also becoming more and more important as people realize that the Ruhr Area is no longer a dirty industrial area, but offers recreational areas with rivers, lakes and forests. Many of the former industrial sites have been demolished, but some have been saved to remind visitors of the history of the Ruhr Area. Many of these preserved sites are connected via the "Route der Industriekultur" (Route of Industrial Culture), including the World Heritage Site Zeche Zollverein in Essen and the large industrial complex of a former steel mill at Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord (Landscape Park Duisburg-North). In 2006 the city of Essen, representing the whole Ruhr Area, was recommended by an independent jury to be the European Capital of Culture 2010 . This was regarded as a big step in structural change since the decline in the coal and steel industries. LANGUAGE The local dialect of German is commonly called ''Ruhrdeutsch'' or ''Ruhrpottdeutsch'', although there is really no uniform dialect that justifies designation as a ''single'' dialect. It is rather a working class Sociolect with influences from the various dialects found in the area and changing even with the professions of the workers. A major common influence stems from the coal mining tradition of the area. For example, the Ruhr Area is more commonly known among locals as either "Ruhrpott", where "Pott" is a derivate of "Pütt" (pitmen's term for ''mine''; cp. the English "pit"), or as "Revier" (pitmen's term for ''seam''). Single words in the dialect are of Polish origin (see below about the Polish immigration in the 19th century), e.g. the word "Mottek" meaning "hammer" which is derived of the Polish word "Młotek" with the same meaning. The article "das" is often spoken "dat(t)" in ''Ruhrpottdeutsch'', "was" is spoken "wat(t)" etc. The influx of foreign workers has introduced new expressions arising from the circumstances of industrial work and led to a form of slang typical of certain groups of people in the area. So there is no unified grammar or spelling of the Ruhrdeutsch variations available, yet a substantial amount of literature has been published, including translations of the famous Asterix comic books representing a typical instance of the varieties spoken in the Ruhr Area. MIGRATION In the 19th Century the Ruhr area pulled up to 500,000 Poles from East Prussia and Silesia due to the event referred to as '' Ostflucht ''. By 1925, the Ruhrgebiet had around 3.8 million inhabitants. Most of the new inhabitants migrated from Eastern Europe, however, one could also find a couple of immigrants from France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It is believed that these immigrants came from over 140 different nations. After World War II, even more immigrants flocked from the east. These guest workers or "gastarbeiter" came mostly from Italy, and Turkey. Almost all of their descendants today speak German only and consider themselves Germans, with only their Polish family names remaining as a sign of their past. In 1900 , the main concentrations of the Polish minority were:
PUBLIC TRANSPORT All public transport companies in the Ruhr Area are run under the umbrella of the VRR (German: Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr), which provides a uniform ticket system valid for the entire area. The Ruhr Area is well-integrated into the Deutsche Bahn , both in passenger and cargo rail. EXTERNAL LINKS
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