Scolarship, Culture and Leisure : Germany

North Rhine-Westphalia’s 2 higher education institutions and trade and technical schools prepare well over 510,000 students for Professional careers. A network of technology centers and transfer sites - including nine institutes operated by the Max Planck Society, five run by the Fraunhofer Society, and ZENIT, a center for innovation and technology in Mulheim an der Ruhr - ensures that small and medium-sized businesses are also able to profit from higher education know-how.

Well over twelve million people visit the state’s 570 museums every year, for example Bonn’s Museum Mile, the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Dusseldorf State Art Collection and the Folkwang Museum in Essen. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia contributes to the maintenance of more than 70,000 architectural monuments. Prominent representatives of the modern fine arts pursue their work at the academies of art in Dusseldorf and Cologne.

100 public theaters and 15 opera houses ensure cultural diversity and international renown, as do the Ruhr Festival, the NRW Theater Encounter and the Oberhausen Days of Short Films. Pina Bausch and her dance theater are just as well known in New York and Tokyo as they are in their native city of Wuppertal. Given this wealth of cultural offerings it is no wonder that nearly 13 million people (booking 36 million overnight stays) visit North Rhine-Westphalia every year, many of whom are likewise attracted by the unspoiled scenery of the Munsterland with its charming moated castles or by recreational opportunities such as skiing in the Sauerland or windsurfing on one of the state’s many artificial lakes.

Coal, Steel and the Media : Germany

Today the state’s economy has a broader foundation than ever before. Since 1960 the percentage of the work force employed in the coal and steel industry has dropped dramatically, from 12.5 percent to 4.7 percent. Only 15 coal mines are still in operation in the Ruhr. Many new jobs have been created in the media and cultural sector, which has become the sector with the highest annual increases in turnover. In 1996 the media conglomerate Time Warner opened a movie park and movie studio complex in Bottrop-Kirchhellen built at a cost of more than DM360 million - the largest investment ever made in this sector in Germany. The Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, the Institute for Media Practice and Media Transfer at the Folkwang Academy in Essen and the academy for the media in Siegen are further examples of the endeavors undertaken by the state in this area. Today about 64 percent of the work force in North Rhine-Westphalia is employed in the service sector. Here the restructuring process was always conjoined with ecological innovation as well: With 1,600 firms active in the field of environmental protection, the state has become one of Europe’s foremost centers of environmental technology.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s bustling economic life is supported by a dense network of autobahns, rail lines and waterways connecting the state’s numerous big cities such as Cologne (966,000 inhabitants), Essen (615,000), Dortmund (599,000), Dusseldorf (571,000), Duisburg (535,000), Bochum (400,000), Wuppertal (382,000), Bielefeld (324,000), Gelsen-kirchen (291,000), Monchengladbach (267,000), Munster (265,000), Krefeld (250,000) and Aachen (248,000). The Dusseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports round out this network; Duisburg on the Rhine has the world’s largest inland port.

57 of Germany’s 160 largest firms have their headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to industrial giants such as Bayer Leverkusen, VEBA AG or the printing and publishing corporation Bertelsmann, about 600,000 small and medium-sized businesses are engaged in production. Dusseldorf is one of Germany’s largest banking centers. Cologne is one of the nation’s leading insurance headquarters. Dortmund has long since overtaken Munich as a “beer city”. North Rhine-Westphalia generates more than one fourth of all German exports and consumes nearly one fourth of the Federal Republic’s imports. The state does not bear the imprint of industry alone, however: Nearly 52 percent of its area is given over to farming, and nearly 25 percent is woodlands.

A European Industrial Area : Germany

Industrial heartland, modern technology center, land of culture and the media: Formerly an industrial landscape dominated by factory smokestacks, winding towers and blast furnaces, North Rhine-Westphalia - with nearly 18 million inhabitants the most populous federal state - has undergone a profound structural change in recent decades. The land of coal and steel has become a land of coal, steel and promising new industries, an attractive site for domestic and foreign investors not least because of its outstanding infrastructure. About half of its people live in large cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants; at 527 persons per square kilometer, its population density is one of the highest in Europe.

The nickname “Kohlenpott” (coal scuttle) is a thing of the past, for the state has long since satisfied the call of the 1960s for “blue skies over the Ruhr”. Nevertheless, the Ruhr area - Europe’s largest industrial region with roughly 30 power plants and a population of approximately 5.4 million people - is still Germany’s main source of energy. The creation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia dates back to the time of British occupation after World War II: In 1946 the greater part of the former Prussian Rhine province and the province of Westphalia were merged - and later augmented by the inclusion of the former state of Lippe-Detmold.

ln 1949 the city of Bonn on the Rhine (nearly 300,000 inhabitants) was chosen the provisional capital of the Federal Republic. After the unification of Germany, Berlin became the permanent capital. Around the year 2000 the seat of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the Federal Government will also be moved to the banks of the Spree River in Berlin. The “federal city” of Bonn, however, will continue to play an important role in the future as an administrative and scientific center.