Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis in the context of "Ruhr Area"

The Ruhr (/ˈrʊər/ ROOR; German: Ruhrgebiet [ˈʁuːɐ̯ɡəˌbiːt] , also Ruhrpott German pronunciation: [ˈʁuːɐ̯pɔt] ), also referred to as the Ruhr Area, sometimes Ruhr District, Ruhr Region, or Ruhr Valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 1,160/km and a population of over 5 million (2017), it is the largest urban area in Germany and the third of the European Union. It consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, and Lippe to the north. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land. It is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 10 million people, which is the third largest in Western Europe, behind only London and Paris.

The Ruhr cities are, from west to east: Duisburg, Oberhausen, Bottrop, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Herne, Witten, Hagen, Dortmund, Hamm and the districts of Wesel, Recklinghausen, Unna and Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis. The most populous cities are Dortmund (with a population of approximately 612,065), Essen (about 583,000) and Duisburg (about 497,000).

Witten (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪtn̩] ) is a city with almost 100,000 inhabitants in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis (district) in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany.

Schwelm (German pronunciation: [ʃvɛlm] ) is a town in the district of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis in the administrative region of Arnsberg within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany.

The Ennepe (German pronunciation: [ˈɛnəpə]) is a river, and a left tributary of the Volme in Northern Sauerland, Germany.

It gave its name to the town Ennepetal, and the district Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis.

The County of Mark (German: Grafschaft Mark, French: Comté de La Marck colloquially known as Die Mark) was a county and state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Lower Rhenish–Westphalian Circle. It lay south of Lippe river on both sides of the Ruhr river along the Volme and Lenne rivers.

The Counts of Mark were among the most powerful and influential Westphalian lords in the Holy Roman Empire. The name Mark derived from a small village Mark and the nearby Castle Mark, the latter was built between 1190 and 1202, both today incorporated in the unitary authority Hamm, founded in 1226 by the first Count, Adolph de la Mark. His father used the older title Altena or Berg-Altena.The county’s name is preserved in the present-day Märkischer Kreis district in lands south of the Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. When the districts were reorganized in 1975, the former district of Altena was merged with parts of several neighboring districts to form the new Märkischer Kreis. The Märkischer Kreis district represents only the southern portion of the former county. Today, the territory of the old county is divided between Märkischer Kreis, parts of the cities of Bochum, Dortmund, Hagen, and Hamm, as well as the districts of Unna, Soest and Ennepe-Ruhr.