History of the Ruhr 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 Dortmund and beyond as far as
Ruhr Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Dortmund and Hamm, were part of Westphalia. The Ruhr area has no administrative center; each city in the area has its own administration, although there exists the supracommunal "Regionalverband Ruhr" institution in Essen. For 2010, the Ruhr region was one of the European Capitals of Culture. The urban landscape of the Ruhr extends from the Lower Rhine Basin east to the Westphalian Plain and south to the hills of the Rhenish Massif. Through the centre of the Ruhr runs a segment of the loess belt that extends across Germany from west to east. Historically, this loess belt has