Duisburg

Duisburg (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}German: [ˈdyːsbʊʁk] ⓘ; Low German: Duisborg, pronounced [ˈdʏsbɔɐ̯χ]) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the 15th-largest city in Germany. In the Middle Ages, it was a city-state and a member of the Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of the iron, steel, and chemicals industries. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf. Duisburg is a city in Germany's Rhineland, the fifth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen) in the nation's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its 500,000 inhabitants make it Germany's 15th-largest city. Located at the confluence of the Rhine river and its tributary the Ruhr river, it lies in the west of the Ruhr urban area, Germany's largest, of which it is the third-largest city after Dortmund and Essen. The Ruhr itself lies within the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest conurbations. The city lies on both sides of the Rhine, with the city centre and most boroughs on the river's right bank, and is the only city of the Rhine-Ruhr region lying on both the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. Duisburg is one of the largest cities in the Meuse-Rhenish (closely related to Dutch) dialect area and the largest in the Kleverlandish area (north of the Uerdingen Isogloss).