Gelsenkirchen

About Gelsenkirchen

Gelsenkirchen (; German: [ˌɡɛlzn̩ˈkɪʁçn̩] ; Westphalian: Gelsenkiärken) is the 26th-most populous city of Germany and the 12th-most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a population of 266,199 as of 2025. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies at the centre of the Ruhr area, the largest urban area of Germany, of which it is the fifth-largest city after Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg and Bochum. The Ruhr is located in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, the second-biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union.