Erkrath
Encyclopedia
Erkrath is a town in the district of Mettmann
Mettmann (district)
Mettmann is a Kreis in the middle of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring are the Ennepe-Ruhr and thedistrict-free cities Wuppertal, Solingen, Düsseldorf,Duisburg, Mülheim, Essen...

, in North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...


Geography

Erkrath is situated on the Düssel
Düssel
The Düssel is a small right tributary of the River Rhine in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany. Its source is between Wülfrath and Velbert. It flows westward through the Neander Valley where the fossils of the first Neanderthal man were found in 1856...

 river, directly east of Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 and west of Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...

, close to the famous Neandertal.

In that part of Neanderthal
Neanderthal, Germany
The Neandertal is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, located about east of Düsseldorf, the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. The valley belongs to the area of the towns Erkrath and Mettmann...

, which is located in Erkrath, in the summer of 1856, quarry workers discovered the fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

ised remains of what became known as the Neanderthal
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

 man or Homo Neanderthalensis in Feldhof cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...

.

History

Erkrath is known since 1148 and received the city rights in 1966. In 1975, the municipality of Hochdahl was incorporated into Erkrath. As well its former borough Unterbach
Düsseldorf-Unterbach
Unterbach was a local borough of Erkrath, Germany, until 1975, when it became an urban borough of Düsseldorf in a local reorganisation. A portion of the pre-1975 Unterbach remains as the borough of Erkrath-Unterfeldhaus...

 was incorporated into Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

. Only a part of Unterbach called Unterfeldhaus remained as now a borough of its own with Erkrath. Erkrath today has three local parts: Erkrath, Hochdahl and Unterfeldhaus.

Twin towns

Cergy-Pontoise
Cergy-Pontoise
Cergy-Pontoise is a new town in France, in the Val d'Oise département, northwest of Paris on the Oise River. It owes its name to two of the communes that it covers, Cergy and Pontoise....

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 West Lancashire
West Lancashire
West Lancashire is a non-metropolitan district with the status of a borough in Lancashire, England. Its council is based in Ormskirk. The other town in the borough is Skelmersdale....

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Leinefelde in Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

 (friendship) Port-de-Paix
Port-de-Paix
Port-de-Paix is a city and the capital of the département of Nord-Ouest in Haïti on the Atlantic coast. It has a population of 250,000 ....

, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

 (sponsorship)

Notable persons

  • Klaus Allofs
    Klaus Allofs
    Klaus Allofs is a retired German footballer, who played as a striker.A prolific goalscorer for club and country , his younger brother, Thomas, was also a professional footballer – and a striker.-Club career:Allofs began playing...

     former German footballer
  • Thomas Allofs
    Thomas Allofs
    Thomas Allofs is a retired German footballer, who played as a striker.The younger brother of another footballer, Klaus Allofs, he was a prolific goalscorer, having scored nearly 200 overall goals as a professional, always playing in the German first division .-Club career:Allofs started his...

     former German footballer
  • Dieter Prochnow Actor (Brother of the famous German Actor Jürgen Prochnow
    Jürgen Prochnow
    Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...

    )
  • Toni Turek
    Toni Turek
    Toni Turek, real name Anton Turek, was a German football goalkeeper.-Biography:Turek was born in Duisburg....

    former German footballer (World Champion 1954)

External links

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