Leverkusen () is a city in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

, Germany, on the eastern bank of the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

, and to the north the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

capital,

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

. With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is one of the state's smaller cities. The city is known for the pharmaceutical company

Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...

and its sports club

Bayer 04 Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, t ...

History

The heart of what is now Leverkusen was Wiesdorf, a village on the

, which dates back to the 12th century. With the surrounding villages which have now been incorporated, the area also includes the rivers

Wupper The Wupper is a right tributary of the Rhine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Rising near Marienheide in western Sauerland it runs through the mountainous region of the Bergisches Land in Berg County and enters the Rhine at Lever ...

and Dhünn, and has suffered a lot from flooding, notably in 1571 and 1657, the latter resulting in Wiesdorf being moved East from the river to its present location. During the Cologne War, from 1583 to 1588 Leverkusen was ravaged by war. The entire area was rural until the late 19th century, when industry prompted the development that led to the city of Leverkusen, and to its becoming one of the most important centres of the German chemical industry. The chemist

Carl Leverkus Carl Leverkus (5 November 1804 – 4 February 1889) was a German chemist and chemistry entrepreneur. He is the namesake of the city of Leverkusen. Education Leverkus started training as a pharmacist in 1822, and then studied at the University ...

, looking for a place to build a dye factory, chose Wiesdorf in 1860. He built a factory for the production of artificial

ultramarine blue Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...

at the Kahlberg in Wiesdorf in 1861, and called the emerging settlement "Leverkusen" after his family home in

Lennep Remscheid () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third-largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on the south side of the Ruhr area. Remscheid h ...

. The factory was taken over by the

company in 1891; Bayer moved its headquarters to Wiesdorf in 1912. After asset confiscation at the end of the First World War, it became

IG Farben Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...

. The city of Leverkusen proper was founded in 1930 by merging Wiesdorf, Schlebusch, Steinbüchel and Rheindorf, and was posthumously named for Carl Leverkus. During the Second World War, the IG Farben factories were bombed by the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

on 22 August 1943, again by the RAF during bombing campaigns on 19/20 November, the USAAF

Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Force ...

on 1 December 1943, and finally once again by the RAF on 10/11 December 1943. In 1975,

Opladen Opladen, now a district of Leverkusen, used to be the capital of the Rhein-Wupper-Kreis (Rhine-Wupper-District) until 1975. Opladen station is located northeast from Cologne on the railway to Wuppertal. It is also on the Autobahn A3. Population ...

(including Quettingen and Lützenkirchen since 1930), Hitdorf and Bergisch Neukirchen joined Leverkusen. The present city is made up of former villages, originally called Wiesdorf, Opladen, Schlebusch, Manfort, Bürrig, Hitdorf, Quettingen, Lützenkirchen, Steinbüchel, Rheindorf and Bergisch-Neukirchen. On 27 July 2021, an explosion at the Chempark site in the city killed 2 people and injured 31 others.

Demographics

Population development since 1832:

Politics

Mayor

The current Mayor of Leverkusen is Uwe Richrath of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SPD), elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2020. The most recent mayoral election was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September, and the results were as follows: ! rowspan=2 colspan=2, Candidate ! rowspan=2, Party ! colspan=2, First round ! colspan=2, Second round , - ! Votes ! % ! Votes ! % , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Uwe Richrath , align=left,

, 28,016 , 46.1 , 29,438 , 70.0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Frank Schönberger , align=left, Christian Democratic Union , 14,198 , 23.4 , 12,619 , 30.0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Stefan Baake , align=left,

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...

, 7,283 , 12.0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Roland Hartwig , align=left, Alternative for Germany , 3,132 , 5.2 , - , , align=left, Karl Schweiger , align=left, Citizens' List Leverkusen , 3,070 , 5.1 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Monika Ballin-Meyer-Ahrens , align=left, Free Democratic Party , 2,613 , 4.3 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Christian Alexander Langer , align=left,

Die PARTEI (''Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative''), or Die PARTEI (''The PARTY''), is a German political party. It was founded in 2004 by the editors of the German satirical magazi ...

, 1,377 , 2.3 , - , , align=left, Markus Beisicht , align=left, Awakening Leverkusen , 1,101 , 1.8 , - ! colspan=3, Valid votes ! 60,790 ! 98.8 ! 42,057 ! 99.1 , - ! colspan=3, Invalid votes ! 744 ! 1.2 ! 362 ! 0.9 , - ! colspan=3, Total ! 61,534 ! 100.0 ! 42,419 ! 100.0 , - ! colspan=3, Electorate/voter turnout ! 126,846 ! 48.5 ! 126,801 ! 33.5 , - , colspan=7, Source
State Returning Officer

City council

The Leverkusen city council governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2, Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) , 16,859 , 27.8 , 4.7 , 14 , 3 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left,

(SPD) , 15,276 , 25.2 , 3.1 , 13 , 1 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left,

(Grüne) , 11,015 , 18.2 , 8.8 , 9 , 4 , - , , align=left, Citizens' List Leverkusen (Bürgerliste) , 3,630 , 6.0 , 1.0 , 3 , 1 , - , , align=left, Opladen Plus (OP) , 3,601 , 5.9 , 0.7 , 3 , ±0 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Alternative for Germany (AfD) , 3,466 , 5.7 , New , 3 , New , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, Free Democratic Party (FDP) , 2,937 , 4.8 , 1.0 , 3 , 1 , - , bgcolor=, , align=left, The Left (Die Linke) , 2,092 , 3.4 , 0.4 , 2 , ±0 , - , , align=left, Citizens' Forum Green Leverkusen – Climate List (Büfo) , 909 , 1.5 , New , 1 , New , - , , align=left, Awakening Leverkusen (AUF) , 876 , 1.4 , New , 1 , New , - ! colspan=2, Valid votes ! 60,661 ! 98.6 ! ! ! , - ! colspan=2, Invalid votes ! 866 ! 1.4 ! ! ! , - ! colspan=2, Total ! 61,527 ! 100.0 ! ! 52 ! ±0 , - ! colspan=2, Electorate/voter turnout ! 126,846 ! 48.5 ! 2.3 ! ! , - , colspan=7, Source
State Returning Officer

Coat of arms

The coat of arms consists of the two-tailed rampant red lion of the

Bergisches Land The Bergisches Land (, ''Berg Country'') is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains ...

with a blue crown on a silver background and an embattled line in front.

Main sights and places of interest

BayArena Bay Arena () is a football (soccer), football stadium in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, which has been the home ground of Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen since 1958. History The stadium was originally known as ''Ulrich-Haberla ...

is the home stadium of

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, t ...

, with a capacity of over 30,000. * The

Bayer Cross Leverkusen Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of business include pharmaceutica ...

is one of the largest illuminated advertisements in the world. * Freudenthaler Sensenhammer is an industrial museum. * Schloss Morsbroich –

moated castle A water castle is a castle whose site is largely defended by water. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats (moated castle) or natural waterbodies such as island castles in a river or offshore. The term comes from European castle ...

in the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style, now a museum for contemporary art. * Water Tower Leverkusen-Bürrig – water reservoir containing an observation deck. * Neuland Park – large park beside the

. *

Japanese Garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

– a 1913 garden extended by

Carl Duisberg Friedrich Carl Duisberg (29 September 1861 – 19 March 1935) was a German chemist and industrialist. Life Duisberg was born in Barmen, Germany. From 1879 to 1882, he studied at the Georg August University of Göttingen and Friedrich Schiller Un ...

in 1923. * Colony of workers – historical area in the form of houses and other buildings constructed for employees and families of the chemical works at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th century. * ''Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit'' – historical boat bridge next to the Rhine, between Wiesdorf and Rheindorf. *

Mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

– mausoleum in the centre of the Carl Duisberg Park, next to the Casino. * NaturGut Ophoven – educational centre for nature in Leverkusen-Opladen.

Sports

The city is home of the football team

and the basketball team

Bayer Giants Leverkusen Bayer Giants Leverkusen is a professional basketball club, part of the TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen sports club based in Leverkusen, Germany. It currently plays in ProA, the second division of German basketball. Based on the number of titles, Leverku ...

, which is the German record holder of national basketball championships. As of 2019, the team plays in the German

ProA Proas are various types of multi-hull outrigger sailboats of the Austronesian peoples. The terms were used for native Austronesian ships in European records during the Colonial era indiscriminately, and thus can confusingly refer to the do ...

league and plays its home games in the

Ostermann-Arena Ostermann-Arena (formerly Wilhelm Dopatka Halle and Smidt-Arena) is an indoor arena, indoor sporting arena located in Leverkusen, Germany. The capacity of the arena is 3,500 people. It is home to the Bayer Giants Leverkusen basketball team. As W ...

. The Ostermann-Arena, previously known as

Wilhelm Dopatka Halle Ostermann-Arena (formerly Wilhelm Dopatka Halle and Smidt-Arena) is an indoor arena, indoor sporting arena located in Leverkusen, Germany. The capacity of the arena is 3,500 people. It is home to the Bayer Giants Leverkusen basketball team. As W ...

and Smidt-Arena, was one of the host arenas for the FIBA

EuroBasket 1985 The 1985 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1985, was the 24th FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA Europe. It took place from 5 to 16 June 1985 in West Germany. The Soviet Union defeated Czec ...

(the official European Basketball Championship).

Twin towns – sister cities

Leverkusen is twinned with: *

Oulu Oulu ( , ; sv, Uleåborg ) is a city, municipality and a seaside resort of about 210,000 inhabitants in the region of North Ostrobothnia, Finland. It is the most populous city in northern Finland and the fifth most populous in the country after: ...

, Finland (1968) *

Bracknell Bracknell () is a large town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the Bracknell Forest, Borough of Bracknell Forest. It l ...

, United Kingdom (1975) *

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

, Slovenia (1979) *

Nof HaGalil Nof HaGalil ( he, נוֹף הַגָּלִיל, lit. ''View of Galilee''; ar, نوف هچليل) is a city in the Northern District of Israel with a population of . Nof HaGalil was founded in 1957 as Nazareth Illit ( he, נָצְרַת עִלִ� ...

, Israel (1980) *

Chinandega Chinandega () is a city and the departmental seat of Chinandega department in Nicaragua. It is also the administrative centre of the surrounding municipality of the same name. It is Nicaragua's 2nd most important city (economy) and 6th largest c ...

, Nicaragua (1986) *

Schwedt Schwedt (or Schwedt/Oder; ) is a town in Brandenburg, in northeastern Germany. With the official status of a ''Große Kreisstadt, Große kreisangehörige Stadt'' (major district town), it is the largest town of the Uckermark (district), Uckermark ...

, Germany (1989) *

Racibórz Racibórz (german: Ratibor, cz, Ratiboř, szl, Racibōrz) is a city in Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland. It is the administrative seat of Racibórz County. With Opole, Racibórz is one of the historic capitals of Upper Silesia, being t ...

, Poland (2002) *

Villeneuve d'Ascq Villeneuve-d'Ascq (; pcd, Neuvile-Ask) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. With more than 60,000 inhabitants and 50,000 students, it is one of the main cities of the Métropole Européenne de Lille and the largest in area ( ...

, France (2005) *

Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city ar ...

, China (2014)

Notable people

Lothar Rohde Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG (, ) is an international electronics group specializing in the fields of electronic test equipment, broadcast & media, cybersecurity, radiomonitoring and radiolocation, and radiocommunication. The company provides ...

(1906–1985), scientist and founder of ''Rohde & Schwarz Messtechnik'' * Heinrich Lützenkirchen (1909–1986), mayor of Leverkusen *

Paul Janes Paul Janes (11 March 1912 – 12 June 1987) was a German football player. He earned 71 caps and scored seven goals for the Germany national team from 1932 to 1942, and played in two World Cups: 1934 and 1938. Janes was a member of the Breslau ...

(1912–1987), footballer *

Wolf Vostell Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are c ...

(1932–1988), sculptor, painter and happening artist *

Ileana Jacket Ileana Jacket (also Ileana Jacquet; born 30 January 1947) is a German-born Venezuelan actress. She made her debut in 1982 in the telenovela ''Jugando A Vivir'' playing Briggitte and has since participated in several telenovelas throughout Latin A ...

(born 1947),

telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...

actress *

Bärbel Dieckmann Bärbel Dieckmann ( Pritz, born 26 March 1949) is a German politician who was elected mayor of Bonn in 1994 and was in office until 2009. She is the first woman and Social Democrat to become mayor of Bonn. Early life and education The daughter ...

(born 1949), politician (

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been t ...

), mayor of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

1994–2009 *

Wilfried Schmickler Wilfried Schmickler (born 28 November 1954 in ) is a German comedian and cabaret artist. Life Schmickler works as a comedian in Germany on TV-shows, in radio and on theatre stages. His programme consist of political cabaret Cabaret is a for ...

(born 1954), comedian *

Andreas Hedwig Andreas Hedwig (born in 1959) is a German archivist and since 2014 the head of the Hessian State Archive. Life Born in Leverkusen, Hedwig completed a and completed this in 1986 with a second Staatsexamen. He then received his doctorate in 1989. ...

(born 1959), archivist *

Dietmar Mögenburg Dietmar Mögenburg (, ; born 15 August 1961) is a (West) German former high jumper who won gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and at the 1982 European Championships in Athens. Career On 26 May 1980, at the age of 18, Mögenb ...

(born 1961), athlete *

Detlef Schrempf Detlef Schrempf (born January 21, 1963) is a German-American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the Washington Huskies from 1981 to 1985, and was drafted into the National Basketball Association (NBA) by the ...

(born 1963), basketball player *

Sabine Moussier Sabine Moussier (; born Diana Sabine Moussier August 23, 1966 in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany) is a German-Mexican actress who is best known for her villainous roles in Televisa's telenovelas, such as ''El privilegio de amar'', ...

(born 1966), Mexican telenovela actress *

Uta Briesewitz Uta Briesewitz (born 1967) is a German cinematographer and television director. She is known for her collaborations with film director Brad Anderson. Biography Briesewitz was born in Leverkusen, Germany. She was exposed to film at an early age ...

(born 1967), cinematographer *

Ralf Schmitz Ralf Schmitz (born 3 November 1974 in Leverkusen) is a German comedian and actor. Life Schmitz works as an actor in German television. Filmography * since 2003: Genial daneben – Die Comedy Arena * 2004–2006: Schillerstraße * 2002– ...

(born 1974), actor and comedian *

Jörg Bergmeister Jörg Bergmeister (born 13 February 1976, in Leverkusen) is a former racing driver from Germany and an ambassador of Porsche. His late father, Willi Bergmeister, owned a workshop and dealership where Michael Schumacher learned his trade as a c ...

(born 1976), racing driver *

Ji-In Cho Ji-In Cho (born 30 December 1976) is a German heavy metal singer of Korean descent. She has been the lead vocalist of the symphonic metal band Krypteria since December 2004 until their hiatus after her pregnancy. Following this, she became th ...

(born 1976), heavy metal singer *

Danny Ecker Daniel "Danny" Ecker (born 21 July 1977 in Leverkusen) is a former German athlete competing in the pole vault. Biography His current personal best is 5.93 metres, but through his indoor best performance of 6.00 metres he has a place in the ...

(born 1977), pole vaulter *

Felix Sturm Adnan Ćatić (born 31 January 1979), known as Felix Sturm, is a Bosnian-German professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO middleweight title from 2003 to 2004, the WBA middleweight ti ...

(born 1979), middleweight boxer * Thomas Fleßenkämper (born 1981), classical composer and pianist

References

Sources

* Blaschke, Stefan (1999): ''Unternehmen und Gemeinde: Das Bayerwerk im Raum Leverkusen 1891-1914'' Cologne: SH-Verlag, (German) * Archive of Leverkusen (2005): ''Leverkusen. Geschichte einer Stadt am Rhein.'' Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, (German) * Franz Gruß (1987): ''Geschichte und Porträt der Stadt Leverkusen.'' Leverkusen: Verlag Anna Gruß, (German)

External links

*
City of Leverkusen
{{Authority control Populated places on the Rhine 1930 establishments in Germany Populated places established in 1930