Ruhr the Duisburg Mercatorhalle, the Saalbau Essen or the Dortmunder Philharmoniker. Each year in spring time, there is the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in the Ruhr area with 50 to 80 events of classical and jazz music. With more than 50 museums, Ruhr has one of the largest variety of museums in Europe. Industrial Museum The city of Essen (representing the Ruhr) was selected as European Capital of Culture for 2010 by the Council of the European Union. The Ruhr region has with 22 universities and colleges and more than 250,000 students, the highest density of further education establishments anywhere in Germany. These
Rhine-Ruhr 20th century. Since the Middle Ages, Cologne, Dortmund and other cities were important regional trading cities, but during the 19th century the city of Düsseldorf grew to become the administrative center of the region and since 1945 its political capital. Today, the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region accounts for roughly 15% of the GDP of the German economy, which would place it as the 4th largest GDP of metropolitan area in the European Union and the 16th largest GDP in the world. Despite this size, the Rhine-Ruhr region as a whole often lacks international competitiveness because it lacks a unified presentation. Cities