21 Facts About Gelsenkirchen

Gelsenkirchen is the fifth largest city of Westphalia after Dortmund, Bochum, Bielefeld and Munster, and it is one of the southernmost cities in the Low German dialect area.

Gelsenkirchen was first documented in 1150, but it remained a tiny village until the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution led to the growth of the entire area.

In 1928, Gelsenkirchen was merged with the adjoining cities of Buer and Gelsenkirchen-Horst.

In Gelsenkirchen-Scholven there is a coal-fired power station with the tallest chimneys in Germany .

Up until the middle of the 19th century, the area in and around Gelsenkirchen was only thinly settled and almost exclusively agrarian.

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In 1815, after temporarily belonging to the Grand Duchy of Berg, the land now comprising the city of Gelsenkirchen passed to the Kingdom of Prussia, which assigned it to the province of Westphalia.

In 1868, Gelsenkirchen became the seat of an Amt within the Bochum district which encompassed the communities of Gelsenkirchen, Braubauerschaft, Schalke, Heßler, Bulmke and Hullen.

In 1885, after the Bochum district was split up, Gelsenkirchen became the seat of its own district, which would last until 1926.

Gelsenkirchen was a target of strategic bombing during World War II, particularly during the 1943 Battle of the Ruhr and the Oil Campaign.

Three quarters of Gelsenkirchen was destroyed and many above-ground air-raid shelters such as near the town hall in Buer are in nearly original form.

When postal codes were introduced in 1961, Gelsenkirchen was one of the few cities in West Germany to be given two codes: Buer was given 466, while Gelsenkirchen got 465.

Jewish community of Gelsenkirchen was officially established in 1874, relatively late compared to the Jewish Ashkenazi communities in Germany.

On 31 March 1942, a Nazi deportation train set out from Gelsenkirchen and, carrying 48 Jews from the town area, made its way to the Warsaw Ghetto.

Gelsenkirchen stated that those older than 68 were allowed to stay in Germany.

ZOOM Erlebniswelt Gelsenkirchen is a zoo founded in 1949 as "Ruhr-Zoo" which is operated by the city.

Gelsenkirchen Harbour has a yearly turnover of 2 million tonnes and a water surface area of about 1.

Gelsenkirchen has 51 elementary schools, 8 Hauptschulen, 6 Realschulen, 7 Gymnasien, and 5 Gesamtschulen, among which the Gesamtschule Bismarck, as the only comprehensive school run by the Westphalian branch of the Evangelical Church, warrants special mention.

Fachhochschule Gelsenkirchen, founded in 1992, has campuses in Bocholt and Recklinghausen.

The science park created in 1995 by Internationale Bauausstellung Emscher Park, Wissenschaftspark Gelsenkirchen, provides a pathway to restructure the local economy from coal- and steel-based industries to solar energy and project management.

Current Mayor of Gelsenkirchen is Karin Welge of the Social Democratic Party since 2020.

Gelsenkirchen is home of the football club FC Schalke 04, currently in the Bundesliga, the first tier of German football.