Talk:Ruhr/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

Admitted. The photo is far worse than I thought. As soon as there is good weather again I'll go and make decent photos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjordan (talk • contribs) 19:54, 26 August 2004 (UTC)

German point of view

It seems to me that the part of the history section concerning the French occupation is told from a German point of view. "French forces occupied the Ruhr area as a means of reprisal after Germany proved incapable of fulfilling excessive reparation payments". Its presented as a fact that they were excessive. But this is an opinion. The French would probably call them insufficient. If someone could change the wording, that would be great. In the meantime Im just adding quotation marks.

Actually, the payments were seen as excessive not only by the Germans, but by most neutral observers. Today there is little doubt among historians (German, British and French alike) that the reparation payments WERE excessive for the simple fact that Germany could not pay them without completely disrupting its finances. See the article on the Weimar Republic. Even French leaders of the time were doubtful about whether high reparation demands would do France's wish for a lasting peace any good. French Marshall Foch, in a display of tremendous foresight, commented on the issue by saying that these (the Versailles) regulations wouldn't bring peace, but merely an armistice for 20 years.

Just noting, in part those reparation payments were revenge for the reparations France had to pay after the Franco-Prussian War (or so I hear). --UnneededAplomb (talk) 20:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Population of the Ruhr Area

There are only some 5.31 million inhabitants in the area not 9 million

5.31 million seems impossible to me since North Rhine-Westphalia has over 18 million inhabitants and it's hard to believe that less than one third of them live in the Ruhr Area. But the German article says 5.3 million too, go figure! Maybe it depends on which regions count as parts of the Ruhr Area and which don't.

don't mix up Rhur Area with Rhein-Ruhr —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.247.14 (talk) 09:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Even then, the population doesn't add up. The figures in the table with the 10 biggest cities sum up to 3270337 inhabitants. Around 2 million people are missing and even if it all the other cities are the same size as the 10th biggest, there are still like 11 cities missing. Those 2 million people can't be living in rural areas that are not even well known to Germans. --94.134.89.38 (talk) 20:54, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

City "Ruhrstadt"

in the text is mentioned that the Ruhr Area is often ment to be one city. It's true that it's not but there's a dicussion in politics about creating a single city "Ruhrstadt". Other ideas are to integrate cities like Mülheim to Duisburg or sth. like that. It would be good if someone could put this in here. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.136.146.124 (talk) 15:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

There have been lots of integrations of minor communities into major towns in the second half of the 20th century, but integrating two cities is unlikely to happen because town councils won't make decisions which might cost their own jobs. It's also unpopular among citizens. (Financially it would be a good idea, though, because almost all Ruhr Area towns and cities are in a desperate financial situation (heavily indebted). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.145.213.116 (talk) 22:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Popular name "Ruhrpott"

I added the information on the very top of the page about "Kohlenpott" because my German teacher is from Bochum and told us in class that's the region's popular name. It means literally "coal pot" because of all the coal mining operations that used to take place in the area. Da nuke 07:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm from Bochum as well and the term Pott actually derives from "Pütt", which is German miner's slang for "mine", related with the English expression "pit". It does not derive from the word Pott (pot). The Ruhrgebiet is usually referred to by us locals as Pott, Ruhrpott, or sometimes "[Das] Revier". (Revier is another mining term derivate, s. article). The term Kohlenpott is known, but much less frequently used. (It's probably too long! :)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.145.213.116 (talk) 22:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

History

Dortmund for example was a reichsfreie town. It also was a Hanse town. That's why it's wrong to say before the Industrial Revolution the Ruhrarea would have been "uninteresting". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edroeh (talk • contribs) 14:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Duisburg was also a Hanse town. --188.101.236.20 (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Good, but needs work

"In the 19th century the Ruhr area pulled up to 500,000 Poles from East Prussia and Silesia due to the event referred to as Ostflucht. Almost all of their descendants today speak German only and consider themselves Germans, with only their Polish family names remaining as a sign of their past."

That could be inaccurate in two ways. First of all, "Almost all of their descendants today speak German only" is, IMHO, kind of incorrect. Can you find ANY Germans of Polish descent in Ruhrgebiet who don't speak German as their mother tongue? I don't think so... thus, "almost all" might need some work ;)

Secondly, it should be mentioned that out of those 500,000 people (or more?), probably a majority returned to Poland after 1918. Both my grandparents returned as children after 1918, so I don't really know what the scale of the migration was, but I assume it wasn't minor.

Anyone with reliable data on this topic here?

Regards, LMB 20:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I'm talking through my hat, but as far as I know the "Ruhrgebiet" is known as the Ruhr, Ruhr Basin or Ruhr Valley in English and not as "Ruhr Area" - that is too literal a translation of the German "Ruhrgebiet". Perhaps someone else knows better.Lazylad 10:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations Lazylad, no you ain't talking through your hat, you've got it exactly right - the correct term for this region in English is simply "the Ruhr", although Ruhr Valley is also used (in many mission reports by WWII RAF personnel, for example); and then again, one could argue that "Ruhr Valley" is used to designate the Ruhr higher up, in the Sauerland, although I think that's nitpicking. Anyway, you can't emphasize too strongly that "Ruhr Area" is codswallop, a too literal translation of "Ruhrgebiet", as you say, and a source of severe pain to native-speaker translators working here (I'm sitting in Duisburg typing this!). 92.227.211.79 (talk) 11:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Article title

Could we correct the title of the article for a start - nobody, but nobody, outside of Germany ever talks about the "Ruhr Area", it's a typical Germanism (technically an incorrect calque); the Ruhr region (with "region" lower-case, i.e., not denoting any official status as a geographical name) maybe occasionally, and in a wider context, but Ruhr Area never - IT ISN'T ENGLISH! Correct title: "The Ruhr", with a rider to direct people to the river of the same name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.227.211.79 (talk) 11:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, see Talk:Ruhr#Primary usage -- PBS (talk) 09:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I have already moved the article Ruhr to Ruhr (river) and using WP:AutoWikiBrowser it is clear that many articles (about 130) that use Ruhr had been linked to what was assumed to be the area article. This has reinforced my initial decision to move the article. --PBS (talk) 20:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The correct title of the article should be Ruhr region or Ruhr district (see quotations below). Wikiwiserick (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

NO it shouldn't! This is an English article and correct English should be used, whatever German-speakers think. Correct English is "The Ruhr". The rider about "more accurately" should also be dropped for the simple reason that it is, in an English context, wrong. Accurate usage is the "The Ruhr". No native speaker of English is ever going to use "the Ruhr district" as the name - or at all. I can think of at least one other example where a river and its surrounding area have the same name - the Kuban, in southern Russia. You just have to state whether the river or the area is meant, if this, in a particular context, is necessary. People learning a foreign language can only really learn by listening to, and then adopting, what native speakers - the real experts - say, and not by trying to dictate what they "should" say on the basis of usage in your own language. It sounds strange? Good! - languages ARE strange, and rarely logical - that's what's so interesting about them! Don't try to tell me what's right in English, and I won't try to tell you what's right in German. Learn from those who speak the language from early childhood.Maelli (talk) 10:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with Wikiwiserick, "Ruhr" is the name of the river only. Although the region is named after that river, it is definitely not called "Ruhr" itself. The common german terms are "Ruhrgebiet" or (less in use) "Ruhrregion". The german word "Gebiet" can be translated by "district", "region" or "territory". So, you see, the article title is totally wrong and should be changed immediatly. (Btw. please excuse my diction as I am not a native speaker of the English language.)--Trade marc 50 (talk) 13:00, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Your last remark proves the point - you're not a native speaker and have no basis to decide what's correct in English. The word "German", and all other "nationality designators", BTW, are ALWAYS written with a capital letter in English, unlike "deutsch", "englisch", etc.Maelli (talk) 10:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

This discussion sounds like some Englsh teacher tries to proof the world that his or her Native language usage is all there is. Believe it or not: there is a world that goes beyond the average Anglophone speaker, and English is not the only language adopting words from other languages. As a matter of fact, the very most of English language consists of words, borrowed from other languages. It is out of the world how aggressively "Ruhr district" is being negated, when it is obvious that it is also used. What next? Do you want to force the rest of the world (who may speak English) to bend to your "definitions" of god-knows-what? Get real! --ZH2010 (talk) 14:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You sound a very nice person. So: 1. Languages borrow words when they need them or like them (think of "cool" in German - there's already a word for it (kühl), but Germans like to say and write "cool", because it describes more than just a physical state between hot and cold. I have absolutely no problem with that. English doesn't need "Ruhr district" (etc.), because it already has, and has long had, a term for this conurbation: "the Ruhr" 2. Of course languages change, and of course new things get added; but only when, as I just said, they are needed or the people speaking the language like them; then some of the new things survive, and some don't. Think of it like this: there is already a word in English for "apple", do we now have to call it something else? In other words, it's an item of vocabulary, a "Vokabel". No one's saying you can't use "Ruhr district", it's just not the right term and it's not the right title for this article. It's an article in English and the English should be correct.Maelli (talk) 21:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

As of this week, we seem to have cleared up the problem of the article title, so might I now suggest that we remove "more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region"? In an English article, it just isn't true - "accurate" in English, is simply "the Ruhr"; this would leave the bracket stating the German, which is perfectly OK.Maelli (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem still remains that, according to Webster’s Dictionary and other dictionaries of English, the first meaning of "Ruhr" is a river in West Germany and only the second meaning (derived from the name of the river) is a mining and industrial region. Furthermore, according to Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary (MWGD), the famous standard reference on place names around the world, the name Ruhr refers only to the river. The preferred name in English for the region, according to this dictionary, is Ruhrgebiet, followed by Ruhr Valley. Wikiwiserick (talk) 22:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting, but the relevant point is that Webster's defines "The Ruhr" as "an industrial district in the valley of the Ruhr"; i.e., this term ("the Ruhr") alone serves to identify the industrial region roughly between the river Ruhr and the river Emscher. "Ruhrgebiet" will never be the "preferred name" among English speakers who don't know German, or for most of them who do - it's WRONG and it sounds, BTW, very silly! Going back to the diatribe against English teachers and native speakers above, since more and more people around the world are learning English, there has to be a common core of the language, otherwise everyone will speak their own form of English and the very point of learning English - to communicate with people from other cultures and language groups - will be lost. That core has to be the English used by native speakers, because you also want to communicate with them, and they're not going to change their language to accommodate the mistakes made by people who don't really speak it fluently - the only other alternative is for everyone to make up their own words (which is effectively what you want to do here, with your mistranslation of Ruhrgebiet). Just accept it, and get used to learning correct vocabulary, and not trying to force through incorrect vocabulary - you're also effectively telling us native speakers that we are lying, which is - to put it mildly - not a nice thing to do. Maelli (talk) 12:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Do we now have a consensus to dispose of ", more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region" (reason: it's just plain wrong)???? Maelli (talk) 12:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I propose that we remove from the article ", more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region" (reason: it just ain't true!); I'll wait seven days and, if there are no serious objections, will remove it. Maelli (talk) 11:30, 6 July 2011 (UTC). I've now waited much more than seven days, and will now remove the offending passage! Liebe Grüße an alle! Maelli (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

As a compromise, I have now written: "The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region...", as these expressions are used in English books and articles and English writers who speak German as a second language would prefer the expression "Ruhr district" or "Ruhr region", as you can see from their writings. For some further arguments, see my paragraph concerning the historical development of the term "Ruhr" below. Wikiwiserick (talk) 23:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Well I've taken it out again, for the reasons mentioned above and because: a) the English is not good b) I AM an English writer who speaks German as a second language and I DO NOT 'prefer the expression "Ruhr district" or "Ruhr region"' and nor would any fluent speaker of English, whether "native" or not. Nobody who knows genuine English would use these terms - as I've said before, they just sound very stupid. ACCEPT IT, we're not lying to you, it's a simple fact! Maelli (talk) 13:38, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You are wrong. Many English and American experts who speak German as a second language and who are aware of the fact that there is a German river called "Ruhr" prefer the terms "Ruhr district", "Ruhr region" or "Ruhr valley" for the mining and industrial region (see the many examples cited below), and this must be mentioned in the Wikipedia article. Wikiwiserick (talk) 13:43, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Population density

The article claims that " ... While large European cities typically have population densities of up to 20,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (about 50,000 per square mile), the population density of the central Ruhr Area—with only about 2,100 inhabitants per square kilometre (about 5,400 per square mile)—is thin compared to other German cities. ..."

Reading this, one could think that the "typical" large European city has a population density of 20,000/km2 or slightly less. This is untrue - There is NOT A SINGLE large city in Europe with these figures, well, maybe except Paris and runner-ups as Barcelone or Naples, but in these cases the topography hinders less-density building. Most large cities in Europe may have an area/a quarter within the city that reaches these figures, but most simply don't. The most populous parts of the Ruhr-Area, the so called "Emscher-Zone" and/or the city-quarters adjacent to the city centres are mostly a mixture of high-density dwellings and (often) abandoned factories, reaching average population densities of 4,000 - 13,000 inhabitants per km2. Compared with the German average these are truly high figures. On the other hand, you cannot compare a polycentric urban centre like the Ruhr with other monocentric agglomerations. --LOS163 (talk) 23:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The article should be renamed "Ruhr region" or "Ruhr district"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus for the move. --PBS (talk) 11:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Ruhr → Ruhr region — To my mind, the correct title of the article should be Ruhr region or Ruhr district, not "Ruhr", as in Germany only the river is called "Ruhr", not the region. See talk page above. Wikiwiserick (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

These are common expressions used by English authors and nearer to the German term "Ruhrgebiet"

Ruhr district These are common expressions used by English authors and nearer to the German term "Ruhrgebiet" (In Germany, "Ruhr" is only used for the river.) Some examples: Ruhr district Gordon Maskew Fair, Pollution abatement in the Ruhr district (1961). "The territory through which the Ruhr flows is called the Ruhr district." See Edmund Jan Osmańczyk and Anthony Mango, Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: A to F (2003), p.1970. "The iron and steel industry of the Ruhr district has 20 per cent of industrial turnover..." See Yves Mény and Vincent Wright, The Politics of steel: Western Europe and the steel industry in the crisis (1987), p. 664. "Although the mining industry in the Ruhr District has collected a considerable volume of gas content data..." See Rodney A. Gayer and Ian Harris, Coalbed methane and coal geology (1996), p. 67. "...at the end of the seventeenth century, and probably 70 or 80 per cent of this coal was produced in Saxony and the Ruhr district." See John Ulric Nef, The rise of the British coal industry, Volume 1 (1966), p. 127. "For instance, the Ruhr district to the east of the Rhine, and north of Cologne, is one of the most important iron, steel, and coal regions on the Continent." See Sir John Lubbock, On Municipal and National Trading (1906), p. 133. "In particular, industry in the Ruhr district (North Rhine- Westphalia) was based upon coal, iron and steel." See E. Owen Smith, The German economy (1994), p. 48. "By the first decades of the twentieth century the Ruhr district was notorious in Germany as a region of enormous factories, polluted air, foul water, slag heaps, huge slums, and wealthy, hard-bitten industrialists." See Gary Backhaus and John Murungi, Ecoscapes: geographical patternings of relations (2006), p. 139. "Within the context of a supra-regional 'division of labour' in water resources management, the Ruhr river was assigned the role of supplying drinking water for the Ruhr district, the most densely populated and industrialized area in Europe." See Robert Ferrier and Alan Jenkins, Handbook of Catchment Management (2009), p. 441. "...the Germans have smelted the bulk of the iron ore produced in Lorraine in the Ruhr district..." See J. Ellis Barker, Economic Statesmanship: The Great Industrial and Financial Problems Arising from the War (2008), p. 290. "There are many refugees from the Ruhr district – people, so I am told, driven out of their homes by the French. I shall not pass an opinion on this until I get into the Ruhr district and study the situation for myself." See David Jordan, A.B. Jordan - A Southern Editor's View of Europe Between the Wars (2007), p. 33. "These properties have been exploited to the full in the Ruhr district of Germany, in Emscher Park, other woodlands in the Ruhr District, and in the Südgelände nature park in Berlin." See Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough, The Dynamic Landscape: Design, Ecology and Management of Naturalistic Urban Planting (2004), p. 441. "Today mines are active in this area only in the Ruhr District..." See Tom McCann, The Geology of Central Europe, Volume 2: Mesozoic and Cenozoic (2008), p. 1367. "The millers of Mannheim said that they had spent a good deal of capital in building up a big grain import business for the Ruhr district from Argentina and the United States of America..." See L. C. A. Knowles, Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century: France, Germany, Russia and the United States (2006), p. 222. "For one important area, the Ruhr District, there exist however some valuable data..." See Claude William Guillebaud, The Works Council: a German experiment in industrial democracy (1928), p. 115. "The Ruhr district, which stretched from Dortmund and Hagen on the south and east to Mülheim on the Ruhr and Hamborn on the north and west, had been the center of German heavy industry since the late nineteenth century." See Mary Nolan, Visions of modernity: American business and the modernization of Germany (1994), p. 137. "... the Ruhr district, one of the most concentrated industrial and population centers of the world..." See F. Douglas Muschett and C. Lee Campbell, Principles of sustainable development (1997), p. 38. "Although war has destroyed most of the surface features of the colossal industrial development of the so-called Ruhr District, the factors which caused that development are still in existence..." See Samuel Van Valkenburg, European Jigsaw (1945), p. 12. "The Removal of the Ruhr District from the Jurisdiction of the Allied Control Council." See A. P. Campanella, Western justification of the North Atlantic pact (1952), p. 155. Ruhr region Hans van der Cammen, Derek Gowling and others, Four Metropolises in Western Europe: Development and Urban Planning of London, Paris, Randstad Holland and the Ruhr Region (1988) "Towards the end of the century, this northern area became known as the Ruhr region..." See Graham Hollister-Short, History of technology, Volume 22 (2000), p. 25. "...the British view was that a much larger economic unit would effectively dilute the power of the Ruhr region." See E. Owen Smith, The German economy (1994), p. 54. "The Ruhr region is one of the biggest conurbations in the world." See John Smith, Revise for geography: GCSE: AQA specification B (2002), p. 77. "...the happy coincidence of two factors: first, the growing importance of coal, with which the Ruhr region was richly endowed, in the making of iron and steel and, second, the fact that there was no traditional steel making industry in the Ruhr region." See Gary Herrigel, Industrial constructions: the sources of German industrial power (2000), p. 76. "The relation of crude steel production to manpower shows that the factories in the Ruhr region have above average productivity rates." See Yves Mény and Vincent Wright, The Politics of Steel: Western Europe and the Steel Industry in the Crisis Years (1987), p. 664. "The importance of coal - and particularly that of the Ruhr region - in the development of Germany is without parallel in the history of any other modern nation." See John Gillingham, Industry and politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr coal, Hitler and Europe (1985), p. 5. "There is, in the Ruhr region, especially in the [northern] Emscher zone, truly a difference between an East Prussian inhabited block of flats, one with mixed inhabitants, and the streets of the inner city proper." See Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles and Walter Pape, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identity and Cultural Differences (1999), p. 23. "Some of this expansion had taken place in the old iron and coal districts of Upper Silesia and the Saarland, but the new power house of German and European industrial might was the Ruhr region." See Sidney Pollard, Typology of industrialization processes in the nineteenth century (1990), p. 50. "Much of the coal in Germany had a high sulfur content and originated from the Ruhr region. In the 1920s, soot, sulfur dioxide, and chemical pollution became so severe and industry so powerful in the Ruhr region that around 1930, the school in Solingen had to shut down for 18 months to accommodate industrial emissions." Mark Zachary Jacobson, Atmospheric pollution: history, science, and regulation (2002), p. 231. "The Ruhr region of Germany (D) built up its heavy manufacturing base of steel, chemicals and textiles using local resources of coal and iron ore." See Alan Bilham-Boult, People, places and themes (2001), p. 123. "The EU has, therefore, been assisting the Ruhr region as an Objective 2 area since 1989." See John Bachtler, Coherence of EU Regional Policy: Contrasting Perspectives on the Structural Funds (2002), p. 254. "There are some 10 million people in the Ruhr region's 4300 square miles — roughly one-third the size of the Delaware River watershed in the United States." See Allen V. Kneese and Blair T. Bower, Managing water quality: economics, technology, institutions (1984), p. 239. "The Ruhr region has long been famous as the center for heavy industry in Germany, starting with coal and steel production." See William Whipple, Planning of water quality systems (1977), p. 153. "Some of this expansion had taken place in the old iron and coal districts of Upper Silesia and the Saarland, but the new power house of German and European industrial might was the Ruhr region." See J. Lesourne, Economic History: Harwood Fundamentals of Applied Economics (2002), p. 50. "The four powers could not agree about the future of German heavy industry, called the 'Ruhr question' because much of it was, and is, located in the Ruhr region." See David F. Patton, Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany (2001), p. 16. "France sought ownership of the coal-rich Saar region and control over the Ruhr region to stifle German economic recovery." See Philip Arestis, Andrew Brown and Malcolm C. Sawyer, The Euro: Evolution and Prospects (2001), p. 9. "But in the late 1950s the mining industries experienced a serious crisis in sales, which resulted in the shutting down of mines — mainly those that had managed to survive in the southern part of the Ruhr region." See Jeffry M. Diefendorf and Kurkpatrick Dorsey, City, country, empire: landscapes in environmental history (2005), p. 66. "The title of one chapter was 'The Ruhr Region as Tourist Destination,' a wording that signaled how unusual it was to consider this, one of the greatest mining and steel centers of Europe, as a site of leisure travel." See Rudy Koshar, German travel cultures (2000), p. 107. "In January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region, the center of Germany's coal, iron, and steel production..." Dennis Crockett, German post-expressionism: the art of the great disorder, 1918-1924 (1998), p. 26. "Many industries were built in the Ruhr region, where both iron ore and coal were found. ... Many of the Ruhr region's factories and mines have been abandoned." See Kathryn Lane, Germany: The Land (2001), p. 24. "As has been noted, the geography of the Ruhr region provided RWE with the opportunity to mix brown-coal and hard-coal generation... The iron and steel works of the Ruhr region also loaded the RWE system economically..." See Thomas Parke Hughes, Networks of power: electrification in Western society, 1880-1930 (1993), p. 418. "Just like the UK coal and steel industry, the Ruhr region went into a rapid decline." See Gary Cambers and Stuart Currie, Geography for Avery Hill (2002), p. 237. Wikiwiserick (talk) 02:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

--Wikiwiserick (talk) 02:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I have refactored this RfC into a WP:RM -- PBS (talk) 05:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose any move "[the] Ruhr" is the common name in English for the area. Take a simple Google book search using English:

• Ruhr-district About 65,200 results
• Ruhr-area About 161,000 results
• Ruhr-river About 71,100 results
• river-Ruhr About 70,700 results
• Ruhr -Ruhr-district -Ruhr-area -Ruhr-river -river-Ruhr About 580,000 results there will be some false positives for the river but even assuming 70,0000 thousand of those the name Ruhr is by far the most common name for the area. -- PBS (talk) 05:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
• "the Ruhr" -Ruhr-district -Ruhr-area -Ruhr-river About 383,000 results which is probably the best measure is still far ahead of Ruhr-area and Ruhr-district combined. -- PBS (talk) 05:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that, according to Webster’s Dictionary, the first meaning of "Ruhr" is a river in West Germany and only the second meaning (derived from the name of the river) is a mining and industrial region. As a Google search shows, "the Ruhr" has 311,000 results (referring to the river and the region), but, surprisingly, "the Ruhr region" has 774,000 results and "the Ruhr district" 407,000 results. Furthermore, the many quotations from published books I have cited show that English and American experts in the field tend to use the expression "Ruhr region" or "Ruhr district", as it is much nearer to "Ruhrgebiet" than "the Ruhr". This means that Ruhr region or Ruhr district is a more appropriate title for the Wikipedia article that deals with the region. See also, for example, this definition: "The territory through which the Ruhr flows is called the Ruhr district" (Edmund Jan Osmańczyk and Anthony Mango, Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: A to F, 2003, p.1970). Wikiwiserick (talk) 23:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

It is best not to use web Google searches because we only consider reliable sources which is why I used Google books. BTW when you do the searches it is better to use a hyphen between words as it seems to return more consistent results The-Ruhr returns about 505,000 results while "the Ruhr" returns about 309,000. The-Ruhr-district about 145,000 results, "the Ruhr district" about 392,000 results; and Ruhr-district about 131,000 results "Ruhr district" about 79,800 results. It would seem that "the Ruhr district" is closer to a sum of numbers returned for "the Ruhr" and "Ruhr district" together rather than the complete string. Not sure why the Ruhr-district is smaller than the-Ruhr-district but I suspect something similar is happening but to a lesser extent. With this quantity of returns it does not really matter but -Wikipedia is usually needed on web searches to eliminate Wikipedia pages. -- PBS (talk) 00:46, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Per PBS's comments. The common term in English is The Ruhr, notwithstanding the examples quoted by the proposer. If we are not happy with that, the original German Ruhrgebiet would be better than mangling a translation. Skinsmoke (talk) 05:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
• Comment the section above called"Article title" when I move the river article from Ruhr, there were 160 link to it which were meant to link to the article that was then named Ruhr Area which is an indication that the common expectation of the editors of other pages that mentioned the region was that the region would be under the name "Ruhr" even though at the time the article was under Ruhr Area. -- PBS (talk) 06:34, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Examples using simply the Ruhr are as follows:
  • The Ruhr built its earlier prosperity on coal and steel, but mining is no longer competitive in Germany and is being wound down, while steel can now be forged with far fewer workers. The Ruhr is still struggling with the consequences. from The Economist
  • The German people were outraged and Fritz Thyssen and other industrialists who had investments in the Ruhr, organized a passive resistance campaign from Spartacus Educational
  • When the Allies were firmly established east of the Rhine River at the end of March 1945, they were within reach of their goal of encircling and capturing the Ruhr, the industrial center of western Germany. from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • If you pay attention to the cultural scene, it probably has not escaped your notice that the Ruhr, a region in central Germany not far from the Dutch border, has been named the European Capital of Culture 2010. from Stars and Stripes
• An alternative is to use Ruhr Valley, a term which is often used for the metropolis, as well as for the physical river valley. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between "Ruhr Valley" (German Ruhrtal; maily used for the river valley) and "Ruhr region" (German Ruhrgebiet; used for the urban and industrial region). However, native speakers of English seem to use the term "Ruhr Valley" as a synonym for "Ruhr region". A Google search for "the Ruhr Valley" shows 804,000 results. Wikiwiserick (talk) 22:57, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The following statement suggests that "the Ruhr" is wrongly used by several native speakers of English for the German word Ruhrgebiet:

• "But what is 'The Ruhr' – about which every Anglo-Saxon schoolboy has heard? Few foreigners know that in fact 'the Ruhr' is the name of a 150-mile-long Rhine right-bank tributary which, after meandering through the industrial basin now named after it, enters its parent near Europe's greatest inland port, Duisburg." See German International, Volume 10 (1966), p. 30.

Wikiwiserick (talk) 23:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Therefore, an alternative may be to create a disambiguation page, for example:

Ruhr (disambiguation)

Ruhr may refer to

• Ruhr (river), a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Ruhr region or Ruhr district (German Ruhrgebiet), an urban and industrial area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Ruhr, a German term for Dysentery, an inflammatory disorder of the intestine
• Haus Ruhr, the names of some former German castles, for instance, a water castle in Schwerte

Wikiwiserick (talk) 22:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The current hat-note takes care of it. We could replace Ruhr (river) with Ruhr (disambiguation) in the hat note but this not an English-German dictionary so we don't need an entry for dysentery and there is no entry for Haus Ruhr and even if there were there is no need to dab it from here.

As the noun "Ruhr" has two senses and another Wikipedia article entitled "Ruhr (river)" already exists, the present article should at least be renamed "Ruhr (region)". See also [1]

Thank you for finding the quote "But what is 'The Ruhr' ..." because it supports common usage: "'The Ruhr' about which every Anglo-Saxon schoolboy has heard ... [is] the industrial basin now named after [the river Ruhr--a river is little known to foreigners]." -- PBS (talk) 00:01, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

"...in fact 'the Ruhr' is the name of a 150-mile-long Rhine right-bank tributary..." The industrial basin now named after the river is called "Ruhrgebiet", i.e. Ruhr region or Ruhr district (not Ruhr). Therefore, another Wikipedia article dealing with the history of the region is entitled, History of the Ruhr District. Wikiwiserick (talk) 00:09, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Notice that History of the Ruhr District was created at 18:55, 25 July 2010, has only had one major contributor, and most of it is unreferenced! This article was originally at Ruhr Area but that is no justification for naming either this or the history article "Ruhr Area". -- PBS (talk) 00:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - Ruhr Metropolis, Ruhr area. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I have been asked to comment on this question. I know that historically (and particularly in Britain during World War II), the region was referred to in English as "the Ruhr". In my opinion, this usage has been giving way to "Ruhr region" or "Ruhr Valley", both of which have the added advantage of avoiding ambiguity with the name of the river. According to Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary (MWGD), a standard reference in the United States on place names around the world, the name Ruhr refers to the river. The preferred name in English for the region, according to this dictionary, is Ruhrgebiet, followed by Ruhr Valley. I agree with the person who posted the question that the headword for the article on this region should not be simply Ruhr. I would be comfortable with any of the proposed alternatives, though I have a slight preference for the two forms preferred by MWGD. Marco polo (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

  "In my opinion, this usage has been giving way to 'Ruhr region' or 'Ruhr Valley'" Your evidence for this opinion is? I would put it to you that almost no-one in the English speaking world has heard of the Ruhr river, and as for contemporary usage see the example above in the Economist. Or do a Google search of the timesonline. On the ignoring the ones about the RAF and WWII (although they make up the majority) there are two articles listed and an obituary for Bernd Becher: Germany still the king of exports - Times Online "But Gustav Krone had not exchanged the blackened skyline and smokestacks of the Ruhr to abandon himself to the fleshpots of Berlin". and "How weak pound hit Premier League spending on imports" "And another thing... Ruhr derby dispels the myths of German league. As derbies go, few can rival the Ruhr rivalry between Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund. Again on Saturday, this one had it all." The obituary mentions "Ruhr Vally" and "Ruhr district" once each. A search of the The Independent returns similar results on the first page returned:Something to declare: The Ruhr in western Germany; Namibia for the,Germany's broken heartland: The mighty mills of the Ruhr are..., Football: United aim to silence roar of the Ruhr. Also of note: the business desk and the sports desk of both newspapers use the term Ruhr. -- PBS (talk) 01:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Some examples from recent London Times articles:

1) Theo Albrecht obituaries (co-founder of 'Aldi'):

• Sunday Times, August 1, 2010: "The Albrechts’ obsession with privacy — living behind fortress-like security on estates overlooking the Ruhr valley, rarely snapped by paparazzi, never making public statements..."
• The Times, August 2, 2010: "...Schonnebeck, a working-class suburb of Essen in the industrial Ruhr region..."

2) Articles on the Duisburg Love Parade stampede

• The Times, July 26, 2010: "The Ruhr Valley, of which Duisburg is part, has been designated 'European Capital of Culture 2010'. ... The Ruhr region is this year’s European Capital of Culture and the event was part of this public relations campaign."
• Sunday Times, July 25, 2010: "It was then switched to the Ruhr region of west Germany in 2007."

3) Article on Paul the octopus:

• The Times, June 25, 2010: "Oberhausen is after all deep in the Ruhr region of west Germany where predictions are usually confined to the Saturday lottery coupon."

These examples may suggest that Marco polo is right with his assumption. Wikiwiserick (talk) 02:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes of course there are examples of use of all of the terms. There has been no evidence presented to suggest that Ruhr is not the usual English terminology for this region or that it is becoming less common and even if it were so. Even if it were true that usage is changing (and no evidence has been presented that it is), Wikipdia is a follower not a trend setter so we should not change to another name unless it can be shown that it is more often used than the current name. -- PBS (talk)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Demographics

Currently sais: Official minority status and rights for Poles (Polish-speaking emigrants and their descendants) in Germany in general and in Ruhr specifically were revoked by Hermann Göring's World War II decree of 27th February 1940, and their property was confiscated. I do not believe that property of descendants of Polish immigrants was confiscated to a significant extent. If it were true however, it should be listed under "history" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meerwind7 (talk • contribs) 21:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Historical development of the term "Ruhr"

Some further information: volume 23 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica has only one definition of "Ruhr": "a river of Germany, an important right-bank tributary of the lower Rhine." This means that the incorrect English use of the term "Ruhr" for the industrial region must have occured in Britain only after World War I, presumably after French and Belgian troops had occupied the Ruhr district and seized its prime industrial assets in lieu of unpaid reparations in 1923. In 1920, an enquiry by the International Labour Office appeared which was entitled, "Coal Production in the Ruhr District". In 1923, the Canadian Commercial Intelligence Journal, Volume 28, Issue 1013, includes the article, "EXPORTS FROM THE RUHR DISTRICT OF GERMANY". In 1924 the press was still talking of the "French occupation of the Ruhr Valley" or "Ruhr District". Perhaps one 62-page publication is responsible for the wrong use of Ruhr (certainly a short form of the then more common Ruhr District or Ruhr Valley) from that time on: Ben Tillett, A. Creech-Jones and Samuel Warren, The Ruhr: The Report of a Deputation from the Transport and General Workers Union (London 1923). See also "The report of a deputation from the Transport and General Workers' Union which spent a fortnight examining the problems in the Ruhr Valley" in The Economic Review, Volume 8, 1923. In the same year, "OBJECTIONS BY THE UNITED STATES TO DISCRIMINATORY REGULATIONS ON EXPORTS FROM THE OCCUPIED REGION OF THE RUHR" were published in volume 2 of the Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1923. Eventually, the 1926 Encyclopedia Britannica, which, of course, includes the entry on the river, has an additional entry dealing with "RUHR, the name given to a district of Westphalia, Germany." This suggests that the name "Ruhr" was given to the region (as a short form of "Ruhr District" or "Ruhr Valley") only a few years before the publication of this edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is slovenliness of the English language used by those who don’t know that Ruhr is the name of a German river. Interestingly, even after World War II, the term "Ruhr" was not in general use for the region, as it must be defined by Samuel Shepard Jones and Denys Peter Myers in the Documents on American Foreign Relations, Volume 10 (1948), p. 125: "Part IX: Definitions Article 29: For the purposes of the present Agreement: (i) the expression 'Ruhr' means the areas, as presently constituted, in Land North Rhine–Westphalia, listed in the Annex to this Agreement." However, Lawrence K. Cecil and Philip Hauge Abelson still write in Water Reuse (American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1967), p. 122: "In the first place, the average person uses the term 'Ruhr' indiscriminately as the Ruhr River or the Ruhr district, two entirely different things. The Ruhr River is only one of half a dozen rivers in the Ruhr district, in addition to the Rhine. The Rhine itself runs through the heart of the Ruhr district..." To my mind, all these facts should be included in an additional paragraph discussing the historical development of the term "Ruhr" in the Wikipedia article showing that its original meaning has only changed by British carelessness and ignorance during the twentieth century. Wikiwiserick (talk) 14:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'd want to use emotion-laden words like "carelessness" or "ignorance", but I think it would make sense to explain how the name of the river came to be used, mainly in Britain, as a shorthand for the name of the region during the 1920s. Marco polo (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Krupp?

How is it that the name Krupp is nowhere used in the body of this article? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The big Essen company in section WW1 is probably Krupp. --Ruhrman (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

First sentence and footnotes

I object to the change of words that this edit makes to the lead. (1) From:

The Ruhr, (German Ruhrgebiet) is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km² and a population of some five million, it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. It consists of several large, industrial 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 12 million people.

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Notes

(2) To:

The Ruhr, by German-speaking Anglo-American geographers and historians more accurately called the Ruhr district, Ruhr region or Ruhr valley (German Ruhrgebiet, colloquial Ruhrpott or Revier), is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km² and a population of some five million, it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany. It consists of several large, industrial 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 12 million people.

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Notes

I think it has brought a blatant POV into the first sentence for which no sources have been provided, and even if the did this would be a fact either for the body of the text or in a footnote. -- PBS (talk) 16:33, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

To my mind, the change of words hasn’t brought a blatant POV into the first sentence. The problem is that the industrial region is named after a German river which is also called "Ruhr". There are examples of use of all of the terms – "Ruhr" (itself an abbreviation of "Ruhr district" that first appeared in the 1920s), "Ruhr district", "Ruhr region", or "Ruhr valley" - and this must be emphasized in the lead, not in a footnote. Robert Dickinson, an expert in the field, has pointed out that "The Heavy Industrial Belt (...) is commonly, though quite inaccurately, referred to as the Ruhr." See Robert E. Dickinson, The Regions of Germany, Volume 7 (London: Routledge, 1945), p. 70. Historian James P. Stobaugh says that the Ruhr is "more accurately called Ruhr district" (British History Student: Observations & Assessments from Early Cultures to Today. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2012).

Examples of English and American geographers and historians using the terms "Ruhr district" and "Ruhr region"

Ruhr district Gordon Maskew Fair, Pollution abatement in the Ruhr district (1961). "The territory through which the Ruhr flows is called the Ruhr district." See Edmund Jan Osmańczyk and Anthony Mango, Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: A to F (2003), p.1970. "The iron and steel industry of the Ruhr district has 20 per cent of industrial turnover..." See Yves Mény and Vincent Wright, The Politics of steel: Western Europe and the steel industry in the crisis (1987), p. 664. "Although the mining industry in the Ruhr District has collected a considerable volume of gas content data..." See Rodney A. Gayer and Ian Harris, Coalbed methane and coal geology (1996), p. 67. "...at the end of the seventeenth century, and probably 70 or 80 per cent of this coal was produced in Saxony and the Ruhr district." See John Ulric Nef, The rise of the British coal industry, Volume 1 (1966), p. 127. "For instance, the Ruhr district to the east of the Rhine, and north of Cologne, is one of the most important iron, steel, and coal regions on the Continent." See Sir John Lubbock, On Municipal and National Trading (1906), p. 133. "In particular, industry in the Ruhr district (North Rhine- Westphalia) was based upon coal, iron and steel." See E. Owen Smith, The German economy (1994), p. 48. "By the first decades of the twentieth century the Ruhr district was notorious in Germany as a region of enormous factories, polluted air, foul water, slag heaps, huge slums, and wealthy, hard-bitten industrialists." See Gary Backhaus and John Murungi, Ecoscapes: geographical patternings of relations (2006), p. 139. "Within the context of a supra-regional 'division of labour' in water resources management, the Ruhr river was assigned the role of supplying drinking water for the Ruhr district, the most densely populated and industrialized area in Europe." See Robert Ferrier and Alan Jenkins, Handbook of Catchment Management (2009), p. 441. "...the Germans have smelted the bulk of the iron ore produced in Lorraine in the Ruhr district..." See J. Ellis Barker, Economic Statesmanship: The Great Industrial and Financial Problems Arising from the War (2008), p. 290. "There are many refugees from the Ruhr district – people, so I am told, driven out of their homes by the French. I shall not pass an opinion on this until I get into the Ruhr district and study the situation for myself." See David Jordan, A.B. Jordan - A Southern Editor's View of Europe Between the Wars (2007), p. 33. "These properties have been exploited to the full in the Ruhr district of Germany, in Emscher Park, other woodlands in the Ruhr District, and in the Südgelände nature park in Berlin." See Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough, The Dynamic Landscape: Design, Ecology and Management of Naturalistic Urban Planting (2004), p. 441. "Today mines are active in this area only in the Ruhr District..." See Tom McCann, The Geology of Central Europe, Volume 2: Mesozoic and Cenozoic (2008), p. 1367. "The millers of Mannheim said that they had spent a good deal of capital in building up a big grain import business for the Ruhr district from Argentina and the United States of America..." See L. C. A. Knowles, Economic Development in the Nineteenth Century: France, Germany, Russia and the United States (2006), p. 222. "For one important area, the Ruhr District, there exist however some valuable data..." See Claude William Guillebaud, The Works Council: a German experiment in industrial democracy (1928), p. 115. "The Ruhr district, which stretched from Dortmund and Hagen on the south and east to Mülheim on the Ruhr and Hamborn on the north and west, had been the center of German heavy industry since the late nineteenth century." See Mary Nolan, Visions of modernity: American business and the modernization of Germany (1994), p. 137. "... the Ruhr district, one of the most concentrated industrial and population centers of the world..." See F. Douglas Muschett and C. Lee Campbell, Principles of sustainable development (1997), p. 38. "Although war has destroyed most of the surface features of the colossal industrial development of the so-called Ruhr District, the factors which caused that development are still in existence..." See Samuel Van Valkenburg, European Jigsaw (1945), p. 12. "The Removal of the Ruhr District from the Jurisdiction of the Allied Control Council." See A. P. Campanella, Western justification of the North Atlantic pact (1952), p. 155. Ruhr region Hans van der Cammen, Derek Gowling and others, Four Metropolises in Western Europe: Development and Urban Planning of London, Paris, Randstad Holland and the Ruhr Region (1988) "Towards the end of the century, this northern area became known as the Ruhr region..." See Graham Hollister-Short, History of technology, Volume 22 (2000), p. 25. "...the British view was that a much larger economic unit would effectively dilute the power of the Ruhr region." See E. Owen Smith, The German economy (1994), p. 54. "The Ruhr region is one of the biggest conurbations in the world." See John Smith, Revise for geography: GCSE: AQA specification B (2002), p. 77. "...the happy coincidence of two factors: first, the growing importance of coal, with which the Ruhr region was richly endowed, in the making of iron and steel and, second, the fact that there was no traditional steel making industry in the Ruhr region." See Gary Herrigel, Industrial constructions: the sources of German industrial power (2000), p. 76. "The relation of crude steel production to manpower shows that the factories in the Ruhr region have above average productivity rates." See Yves Mény and Vincent Wright, The Politics of Steel: Western Europe and the Steel Industry in the Crisis Years (1987), p. 664. "The importance of coal - and particularly that of the Ruhr region - in the development of Germany is without parallel in the history of any other modern nation." See John Gillingham, Industry and politics in the Third Reich: Ruhr coal, Hitler and Europe (1985), p. 5. "There is, in the Ruhr region, especially in the [northern] Emscher zone, truly a difference between an East Prussian inhabited block of flats, one with mixed inhabitants, and the streets of the inner city proper." See Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles and Walter Pape, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identity and Cultural Differences (1999), p. 23. "Some of this expansion had taken place in the old iron and coal districts of Upper Silesia and the Saarland, but the new power house of German and European industrial might was the Ruhr region." See Sidney Pollard, Typology of industrialization processes in the nineteenth century (1990), p. 50. "Much of the coal in Germany had a high sulfur content and originated from the Ruhr region. In the 1920s, soot, sulfur dioxide, and chemical pollution became so severe and industry so powerful in the Ruhr region that around 1930, the school in Solingen had to shut down for 18 months to accommodate industrial emissions." Mark Zachary Jacobson, Atmospheric pollution: history, science, and regulation (2002), p. 231. "The Ruhr region of Germany (D) built up its heavy manufacturing base of steel, chemicals and textiles using local resources of coal and iron ore." See Alan Bilham-Boult, People, places and themes (2001), p. 123. "The EU has, therefore, been assisting the Ruhr region as an Objective 2 area since 1989." See John Bachtler, Coherence of EU Regional Policy: Contrasting Perspectives on the Structural Funds (2002), p. 254. "There are some 10 million people in the Ruhr region's 4300 square miles — roughly one-third the size of the Delaware River watershed in the United States." See Allen V. Kneese and Blair T. Bower, Managing water quality: economics, technology, institutions (1984), p. 239. "The Ruhr region has long been famous as the center for heavy industry in Germany, starting with coal and steel production." See William Whipple, Planning of water quality systems (1977), p. 153. "Some of this expansion had taken place in the old iron and coal districts of Upper Silesia and the Saarland, but the new power house of German and European industrial might was the Ruhr region." See J. Lesourne, Economic History: Harwood Fundamentals of Applied Economics (2002), p. 50. "The four powers could not agree about the future of German heavy industry, called the 'Ruhr question' because much of it was, and is, located in the Ruhr region." See David F. Patton, Cold War Politics in Postwar Germany (2001), p. 16. "France sought ownership of the coal-rich Saar region and control over the Ruhr region to stifle German economic recovery." See Philip Arestis, Andrew Brown and Malcolm C. Sawyer, The Euro: Evolution and Prospects (2001), p. 9. "But in the late 1950s the mining industries experienced a serious crisis in sales, which resulted in the shutting down of mines — mainly those that had managed to survive in the southern part of the Ruhr region." See Jeffry M. Diefendorf and Kurkpatrick Dorsey, City, country, empire: landscapes in environmental history (2005), p. 66. "The title of one chapter was 'The Ruhr Region as Tourist Destination,' a wording that signaled how unusual it was to consider this, one of the greatest mining and steel centers of Europe, as a site of leisure travel." See Rudy Koshar, German travel cultures (2000), p. 107. "In January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region, the center of Germany's coal, iron, and steel production..." Dennis Crockett, German post-expressionism: the art of the great disorder, 1918-1924 (1998), p. 26. "Many industries were built in the Ruhr region, where both iron ore and coal were found. ... Many of the Ruhr region's factories and mines have been abandoned." See Kathryn Lane, Germany: The Land (2001), p. 24. "As has been noted, the geography of the Ruhr region provided RWE with the opportunity to mix brown-coal and hard-coal generation... The iron and steel works of the Ruhr region also loaded the RWE system economically..." See Thomas Parke Hughes, Networks of power: electrification in Western society, 1880-1930 (1993), p. 418. "Just like the UK coal and steel industry, the Ruhr region went into a rapid decline." See Gary Cambers and Stuart Currie, Geography for Avery Hill (2002), p. 237.

It has already been discussed whether the article title should be changed (see discussion above). However, there was no consensus, although some users were of the opinion to do so. As the article title is "Ruhr", the other common terms should also be mentioned in the lead. So the reader can decide which term he would like to use. Wikiwiserick (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You have given two examples on which to build your statement "by German-speaking Anglo-American geographers and historians more accurately called the Ruhr district, Ruhr region or Ruhr valley". one is from a book written in 1945 had can hardly be considered authoritative more than 60 years later (better to do what I have done and quote the man without a WP:SYN), because what is in the source is: "The Heavy Industrial Belt (...) is commonly, though quite inaccurately, referred to as the Ruhr" which says nothing to support your words. The second example you have given is a sawn off quote the actual quote is "Ruhr– Also, and more accurately, called Ruhr district or Ruhr." -- PBS (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

As to your selective list there are probably 100 reliable sources that use the term Ruhr for every one that uses Ruhr region etc, so on what do you base that statemen"German-speaking Anglo-American geographers and historians more accurately called" if it is not SYN or another type of OR? -- PBS (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

You could simply argue that the statement is self-evident. German-speaking experts, who know that the German term "Ruhr" only refers to the river and not to the region (which is called "Ruhrgebiet", not "Ruhr"), frequently use the terms "Ruhr district", "Ruhr region" or "Ruhr Valley" in their publications. The English term "Ruhr" for the industrial region did not exist until the 1920s, when some ignorant English writers began to use the abbreviation "Ruhr" for the then common "Ruhr district". Seen from a historical point of view, until the early twentieth century, the term "Ruhr" was only used for the German river in English publications. Another user has already pointed out that, according to Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary (MWGD), the famous standard reference on place names around the world, the name "Ruhr" refers only to the river. The preferred name in English for the region, according to this dictionary, is Ruhrgebiet, followed by Ruhr Valley. Wikiwiserick (talk) 23:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

It is not self evident. It might be if they all used the same term, but they do not, and common usage since at least the 1920s has been for Ruhr to mean Ruhr area (however defined) and not the Ruhr river -- this is seen in the naming of such post war Allied organisations such as International Authority for the Ruhr. The equivalent in Britain is the Black Country which also has no precise definition but is used in a similar way. -- PBS (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I am going to ask for a third opinion on which is the better start to the lead. -- PBS (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

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I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on Ruhr and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

I had a look at the two proposed first sentences for the article. I also reviewed that rest of the talk page and read through the article. I find the policy at WP:Article_titles#Treatment_of_alternative_names and the guideline at WP:BEGINNING particularly relevant. I do not think a phrase such as by German-speaking Anglo-American geographers and historians more accurately called has any place in the first sentence - it is too detailed. If there is genuine, documented academic debate about what the region should be called (with the debate itself documented in reliable sources), then this might merit a sentence in the article body (if this is really just a meta-argument that has spilled over into the article, then it has no place in the article whatsoever). However, I do not much like the older, footnoted version much either. Based on the examples given in the manual of style I linked above, I suggest something along the lines of, "The Ruhr, (German Ruhrgebiet), also Ruhr district, Ruhr region or Ruhr valley, is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany."

I think this article is a good candidate for a move to Ruhr region, with Ruhr (disambiguation) moved to Ruhr. I see a similar move proposal was suggested in 2010, which was closed inappropriately by an editor that participated in the discussion. Since so much time has passed, if there are still mixed feelings on the move I suggest opening a new move discussion and possibly using the request for comment process to get better participation. Please note that the decision to move or not move should be based on which term is the most common name, not which name is more "correct." VQuakr (talk) 21:39, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

PBS has claimed that "common usage since at least the 1920s has been for Ruhr to mean Ruhr area (however defined) and not the Ruhr river." I do not think that this has been the case, as both the Webster's and the Encyclopedia Britannica still refer in first place to the river in their definitions of "Ruhr" and the OED mentions that the region of coal mining and heavy industry "is named after the River Ruhr." Furthermore, the term "Ruhr" is still used for the river in several English publications. See, for instance:

• "The city of Duisburg, located where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine, is Europe's largest and busiest river port. Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, is the banking and commercial center for the cities of the Ruhr Valley." Prudence Cutright and John Jarolimek, Macmillan Social-Studies Series: Living as World Neighbors (1962), p. 154.
• "The Rhine, into which the Ruhr flows, is one of the world's busiest and best waterways and provides the German iron and steel industry with easy and economical access to the sea." Charles Langdon White, World Economic Geography (1964), p. 192.
• "For most of its length the Ruhr flows through rolling terrain, partly farmed and partly forested." Charles Carlyle Colby, North Atlantic Arena: Water Transport in the World Order (1966), p. 178.
• "These, joined to the coal mines of the Saar and connected with the mines and factories and cheap water transport of the valleys where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine, made an industrial unit second only in value to that of Northern England." John Hampden Jackson, England Since the Industrial Revolution: 1815-1948 (1975), p. 121.
• "Another tributary of the Rhine is the Ruhr, famous during the years after the War, on the banks of which lies the Ruhr district, with its tremendous industrial works and the headquarters of the important coal and iron industry of Germany." Eugene Fodor, On the Continent: The Entertaining Travel Annual (1986), p. 469.
• "Duisburg is a large city with a population of 540,000, situated at the western edge of the Ruhr area, where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine." Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert, Quality Improvement in European Public Services: Concepts, Cases and Commentary (1995), p. 76.
• "The Heavy Industrial Belt (...) is commonly, though quite inaccurately, referred to as the Ruhr. This is a belt of low and level land on the northern edge of the uplands, known as the Sauerland through which flows the Ruhr from east to west." Robert E. Dickinson, The Regions of Germany, Volume 7 (1998), p. 70.
• "The Ruhr, whose name derives from the Celtic word for 'red brook,' after the red sandstone in the drainage basin, rises in the hilly uplands of west-central Germany and generally flows westward, though in a highly tortuous route, to its junction with the Rhine..." James R. Penn, Rivers of the World: A Social, Geographical, and Environmental Sourcebook (2001), p. 229.
• "The Ruhr association is active in the whole region where the river Ruhr flows. Over 5 million people receive drinking water from the Ruhr." Karl Eckart et al., Social, Economic and Cultural Aspects in the Dynamic Changing Process of Old Industrial Regions (2003), p. 92.
• "The dam raised the Ruhr's water level by nearly five meters, slowing the river's flow and creating a backwater." Mark Cioc, The Rhine: An Eco-biography, 1815-2000 (2005), p. 96.
• "The Ruhr Valley lies east of the Rhine in northwest Germany. The Ruhr River flows from its source in the Sauerland, the hills of which lie south and southeast of the valley, and west-northwest to its confluence with the Rhine..." Derek S. Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West (2006), p. 38.
• "After leaving the Sauerland area (...) the Ruhr flows through several lakes during its passage through the Ruhr megalopolis." Kai Bester, Personal Care Compounds in the Environment: Pathways, Fate and Methods for Determination (2007), p. 25.
• "Within NRW there is a concentration of industry along the east-west flowing rivers Ruhr and Emscher and around their confluence with the river Rhine..." Chris Couch, Charles Fraser and Susan Percy, Urban Regeneration in Europe (2008), p. 151.

Just some examples. Wikiwiserick (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Of course in there is a Ruhr river in context may be called Ruhr without qualifying it with river as with your first quote "The city of Duisburg, located where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine" but that is because rivers flow! I am not sure what it is that you are trying to prove. You have produced two example from reliable sources that confirm the common usege of "Rhur" the first on this page (23:34, 28 July 2010) and the second in the article:

• "But what is 'The Ruhr' – about which every Anglo-Saxon schoolboy has heard? Few foreigners know that in fact 'the Ruhr' is the name of a 150-mile-long Rhine right-bank tributary which, after meandering through the industrial basin now named after it, enters its parent near Europe's greatest inland port, Duisburg." See German International, Volume 10 (1966), p. 30.
• "The Heavy Industrial Belt (...) is commonly, though quite inaccurately, referred to as the Ruhr" (Dickinson 1945, p. 70)

Do you have any sources that contradict these two and say that the common meaning is the river? -- PBS (talk) 19:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Another user has already pointed out that according to Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary (MWGD), the famous standard reference on place names around the world, the name "Ruhr" refers only to the river, and not to the industrial region, which is more accurately called Ruhrgebiet or Ruhr Valley. Interestingly, other European languages do not use the short form "Ruhr" for the German Ruhrgebiet, as some English authors do: Dansk: Ruhr-distriktet -- Español: Región del Ruhr -- Français: Ruhr (région) or La région de la Ruhr -- Italiano: Regione della Ruhr -- Magyar: Ruhr-vidék -- Nederlands: Ruhrgebied -- Polski: Zagłębie Ruhry. They seem to be well aware that "Ruhr" is the name of a German river. Furthermore, user VQuakr, responding to a third opinion request for this page, has clearly stated: "I think this article is a good candidate for a move to Ruhr region, with Ruhr (disambiguation) moved to Ruhr." Wikiwiserick (talk) 01:25, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

What other languages call the Ruhr is of not relevant (other some languages call Cologne by other names, but that is no reason to change English usage). This article represent s the primary usage of the term so a move to alter it to a dab page would be a disservice to the readers of Wikipedia as the hatnote is a better way of presenting secondary meanings.-- PBS (talk) 14:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

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