NRW Invest
North Rhine-Westphalia lies in the heart of Europe and has borders with The Netherlands and Belgium. It is both the most populous and the most densely populated of Germany’s 16 federal states, with 18 million people in a 34,086 km² area (529 inhabitants/km²), a figure comparible with New York State, Australia and Taiwan, and greater than The Netherlands, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary and Sweden.
NRW’s 29 cities have a total of over 100,000 inhabitants, the largest being Cologne, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen and Duisburg. The most important metropolitan areas are the Ruhr region with approx. 5.4 million inhabitants and Rhineland with 3.5 million inhabitants.
Almost 150 million people live within 500 km of the state capital, Düsseldorf, an area which represents 1/3 of all consumers and 45 % of the purchasing power in the EU. The inhabitants of NRW alone spend EUR 316 billion on private consumption every year.
With over 400 international direct flights departing from 7 airports in NRW, all Europe's major cities can be reached by air within 3 hours. Good road, rail and waterway networks provide worldwide accessibility. Duisburg is the world's largest inland port, handling 100 million tons of goods per year.
NRW is Germany's leading chemical location, the biggest mechanical engineering industrial employer and the most important steel location in Europe. The state is also Europe's no. 1 energy region, producing about a third of Germany’s electricity and consuming almost 30 % of it. 17.3% of German exports are "Made in NRW" and the region is also the world’s number 1 trade fair location.