History of the Ruhr and steel industries have declined drastically History of the Ruhr The actual boundaries of the Ruhr vary slightly depending on the source, but a good working definition is to define the Lippe and Ruhr as its northern and southern boundaries respectively, the Rhine as its western boundary, and the town of Hamm as the eastern limit. In the Middle Ages, local power was vested primarily in the counts ("Grafen") of Berg, Mark and Cleves. The left bank of the Rhine was held by the Archbishop of Cologne. The Hellweg was an important trade route crossing the region from Duisburg to
Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn The Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn () is an umbrella system of all of the Stadtbahn (light rail) lines included in the integrated public transport network of Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) which covers the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area in western Germany. It does not include the independent Cologne Stadtbahn and Bonn Stadtbahn systems. At the beginning of the 1960s, road traffic in the Rhine-Ruhr area increased like in other German metropolitan areas. Existing trams were regarded as obstacles for car-oriented cities. Therefore, these trams should be relocated to underground sections below city centers (as Stadtbahn lines) if they were not replaced by bus