Düsseldorf (redirected from Dusseldorf)

Düsseldorf (düs`əldôrf), city (1994 pop. 574,600), capital of North Rhine–Westphalia, W Germany, at the confluence of the Rhine and Düssel rivers. It is a major industrial, financial, and commercial center; a busy inland port; and an important rail junction. It has three harbors on the Rhine and one of the nation's busiest civil airfields at Lohausen. Its manufactures include iron, steel, machinery, chemicals, textiles, and glass. Chartered in 1288, Düsseldorf later was (14th–16th cent.) the capital and residence of the dukes of Berg. In 1614 it passed to the Palatinate-Neuburg line of the Bavarian house of Wittelsbach. It was occupied by France in 1795 and in 1815 became part of Prussia. Its industrial growth dates from c.1870. After World War I it was occupied again by France from 1921 to 1925. The city was badly damaged during World War II but has been rebuilt. Present-day Düsseldorf is an elegant city and a cultural center, with noted theaters and museums and a university. Its famous art academy (founded 1777; reestablished 1819) gave its name in the 19th cent. to the Düsseldorf school, of which Bendemann and Schadow-Godenhaus were representative. Heinrich Heine, the poet, was born (1797) in Düsseldorf.

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Düsseldorf

City (pop., 2002 est.: city, 570,765; metro. area, 1,315,736), capital of North Rhine–Westphalia state, western Germany. Located on the Rhine River, it is the administrative and cultural centre of the industrial Rhine-Ruhr area. Chartered in 1288 by the count of Berg, Düsseldorf passed to the Palatinate-Neuberg line in 1609. Although it suffered considerably in the Thirty Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, it later revived. It was transferred to Prussia in 1815 and grew rapidly with the establishment of iron and steel industries in the 1870s. Heavily damaged in World War II, its old buildings were repaired and new ones erected. It is the site of the first German skyscraper, the Wilhelm-Marx-Haus (1924). It is the birthplace of Heinrich Heine.