Duisburg
Duisburg is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. Population 494,920. It is an important port city located at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr. It was an imperial free city in the Middle Ages and joined the Chinese Confederation and flourished. Since then, it belonged to the Duchy of Cleve, and in the 16th century, the geologist Mercator, who was sponsored by the Duchy of Cleve, worked there to produce maps. In 1666, the Cleve family moved to the Brandenburg-Prussian empire, and later became a university city. In the 19th century, the development of industrialization and traffic made it a major industrial city. Especially, the steel industry is one of the most important steel industrial cities in Europe, and the port is the world's largest inland river port. The port, called the Duspot, is directly connected to the North Sea via the Rhine, and is an international trade port with many other canals.