Wesseling (German pronunciation: [ˈvɛsəlɪŋ] (listen)) is an industrial German city on the Rhine bordering Cologne city on the south. With three chemical plants and a petroleum refinery within its city limits, it has an important place in the international petrochemical industry.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (November 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,904 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Wesseling]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Wesseling}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Wesseling
Town
Old town hall
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Wesseling within Rhein-Erft-Kreis district
Wesseling Show map of Germany Wesseling Show map of North Rhine-Westphalia
Coordinates: 50°49′N 6°58′E
Country	Germany
State	North Rhine-Westphalia
Admin. region	Cologne
District	Rhein-Erft-Kreis
Subdivisions	4
Government
• Mayor (2020–25)	Erwin Esser[1] (SPD)
Area
• Total	23.4 km2 (9.0 sq mi)
Highest elevation	62 m (203 ft)
Lowest elevation	42 m (138 ft)
Population  (2020-12-31)[2]
• Total	36,731
• Density	1,600/km2 (4,100/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+01:00 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+02:00 (CEST)
Postal codes	50389
Dialling codes	02236, 02232
Vehicle registration	BM
Website	www.wesseling.de

History and etymology

The find of Roman consecration altars, the excavation of a Roman country house and Franconian burial grounds are early evidence of the settlement of the place. Wesseling originates from the Latin "Wasliacum" which means "Village of Waslica". The story that Wesseling originates from "changing of the rope" (German: Cologne-bred:Wechsel de Ling) from when Rhine boats were pulled by horses is something like an urban legend because the name Wesseling is centuries older than the horse-changing station, which was located in Wesseling in the 18th century.

Around 1700 there was a team changing point for towing boats in Wesseling. Until industrialization, the place between Cologne and Bonn remained rather insignificant. Only in 1793 did a tannery hint at the coming industrial age. In 1848 a democratic workers' association was founded in Wesseling. In this year, the uprising of the Treidler (Rheinhalfen) spread to the Wesselinger Treidelstation, who saw their trade endangered by the upcoming steamship. In 1880, Heinrich and Franz Zimmermann founded the 'Chemische Fabrik Wesseling' for the processing of gas cleaning mass as the origin of today's Evonik chemical works in the north of the city. In 1904 the construction of the Rheinuferbahn (Rhine bank railway) from Cologne via Wesseling to Bonn began. A transverse railway has connected Wesseling with Brühl since 1900. Today, this line is mostly used for freight traffic.

During the World War II from 1939 to 1945, around 10,000 foreign and forced laborers were employed in Wesseling's industry.[3] For comparison, the city itself had only 7,500 inhabitants. The forced laborers, most of whom were employed in the UK and Deutsche Norton, were in wooden barrack camps[4] accommodated. The so-called 'southern camp was located next to today's station in Wesseling-Süd. Another barracks camp was located directly on the Rhine, the so-called 'Rhine camp'. Wesseling was conquered and occupied -similar to Cologne- early March 1945 as part of Operation Lumberjack by the First United States Army.

Economy

In addition to 4 subdivisions, Wesseling has the industrial areas "Rheinbogen" and "Eichholz". Home to several chemical companies including Evonik, and Basell, and a Royal Dutch Shell oil refinery; the city was a bombing target of the Oil Campaign of World War II.

Subdivisions

Twin towns – sister cities

Wesseling is twinned with:[5]

• Leuna, Germany
• Pontivy, France
• Traunstein, Germany
• West Devon, England, United Kingdom

References

Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at Wesseling; see its history for attribution.

This Rhein-Erft-Kreis location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

На других языках

[de] Wesseling

[ru] Весселинг