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Dortmund is the third largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia and the ninth largest in Germany, with 614,495 people, and it lies in the east of the Ruhr area. It is home to the football club Borussia Dortmund, the Technical University of Dortmund and a well-known pale lager, Dortmunder Export.
Founded around 882, Dortmund became an Imperial Free City and was a leading city of the Hanseatic League in the 13th and 14th centuries. Industrialisation made it a centre of coal and steel, its population rising from 57,742 in 1875 to 379,950 in 1905, and wartime bombing destroyed about 66 percent of its homes.
Visitors see the medieval churches on the Hellweg, the German Football Museum and the Dortmunder U, and catch a match at the Westfalenstadion. The Westfalenpark with the Florianturm, the Phoenix See and the Zollern colliery show the greener, post-industrial city.
St. Reinold's Church, dedicated to the city's patron Reinold, is by its founding date the oldest church in Dortmund, built from 1250 to 1270 where the Hellweg crossed the old road from Cologne to Bremen. When finished in 1454 its 112-metre tower was called the Miracle of Westphalia.
The Petrikirche Dortmund, or St. Peter's Church, is a High Gothic hall church of light sandstone begun in 1322 on the Westenhellweg. It is famous for its carved altar of 1521, the Golden Miracle of Dortmund, with 633 gilt oak figures, and its spire was restored to full height in 1981.
The Marienkirche Dortmund, or St. Mary's Church, was built in Romanesque style from 1170 to 1200 on the Hellweg for the town council and is the oldest surviving church in the inner city. Rebuilt after the war, it keeps the Berswordt altar and the Marienaltar of 1420 by Conrad von Soest.
The Dortmund Christmas Market fills the pedestrian streets of the centre in the month before Christmas and draws well over three and a half million visitors to its 300 stalls. At its heart stands a giant Christmas tree creation 45 metres tall, and it is known for handmade ornaments and treats.
The Westfalenstadion, officially Signal Iduna Park, is the home of Borussia Dortmund and the largest stadium in Germany, holding 81,365 at league games. Its South Bank, for 24,454 fans, is the largest standing terrace in European football, and it holds the European record for average attendance.
The German Football Museum is the national museum of German football, close to Dortmund Hauptbahnhof on an art and culture mile between the Dortmunder U and the Theater Dortmund. Its permanent exhibition tells the story of the German national team and the Bundesliga through football memorabilia.
The Zollern II/IV Colliery in Bövinghausen was planned in 1898 as a model colliery, with brick buildings by Paul Knobbe completed in 1904. Its central engine house has an Art Nouveau entrance by Bruno Möhring with coloured lead glazing, and it is now part of the Westphalian Industrial Museum.
The Dortmunder U is the former Union Brewery tower of 1926 and 1927, Dortmund's first high-rise, spared when the rest of the brewery was demolished after 1994 because of its landmark status. Since 2010 it has been a centre for art and creativity, housing the Museum Ostwall and modern art.
The Westfalenpark is one of the largest inner-city parks in Europe, covering 70 hectares, and was first opened in 1959 for a federal garden show. It has the National Rosarium with 3,000 kinds of roses, theme gardens and the German Cookbook Museum, and it hosts the Juicy Beats music festival.
The Florianturm is Dortmund's television tower, built in the Westfalenpark in 1959 for a federal garden show and named after St. Florian. It was briefly the tallest freestanding structure in Germany and was the first TV tower in the world with a revolving restaurant, which sits at 137.5 metres.
The Phoenix See is an artificial lake in Hörde, 3 kilometres from the city centre, created from 2005 on the site of a former ThyssenKrupp blast furnace and steel plant. It is 1.2 kilometres long, 320 metres wide and only 3 to 4 metres deep, and new homes now line its northern and southern shores.
The Rombergpark is a botanical garden and arboretum of 65 hectares in the south of Dortmund, laid out in 1822 as the Romberg family's English landscape park. The city bought it from 1927 to 1929, and after war damage it was rebuilt from 1950 with some 4,500 species of trees and shrubs.
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