is an

autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track' ...

in western

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It connects

Kamp-Lintfort Kamp-Lintfort () is a town in Wesel District, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located north-west of Moers. Notable people * Adolf Storms (1919–2010), member of the Waffen-SS and war criminal *Werner Fuchs (1927–2005), painter *Bri ...

with

Castrop-Rauxel Castrop-Rauxel (), often simply referred to as Castrop by locals, is a former coal mining city in the eastern part of the Ruhr Area in Germany. Geography Castrop-Rauxel is located in Germany between Dortmund to the southeast, Bochum to the sou ...

, linking several large cities in the

Ruhr area The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), 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 2,800/km ...

, such as Dortmund,

Duisburg Duisburg () 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 No ...

, the North of Essen and Gelsenkirchen. It is colloquially known as ''Emscherschnellweg'', after the river

Emscher The Emscher () is a river, a tributary of the Rhine, that flows through the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Its overall length is with an mean outflow near the mouth into the lower Rhine of . Description The Emscher h ...

, which it roughly follows. Construction went underway in the 1970s and 1980s.

Exit list

External links

42 A042 {{Germany-road-stub