The first time Dortmund was mentioned in official documents was around 882 as Throtmanni – In throtmanni liber homo arnold[us] viii den[arios] nob[is] soluit [solvit]. In 1005 the "Ecclesiastical council" and in 1016 the"Imperial diet" met in Dortmund.
After it was destroyed by a fire, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) had the town rebuilt in 1152 and resided there (among other places) for two years. In 1267 St. Mary's Church, Dortmund, and three years later in 1270 St. Reinold's Church first mentioned. The combination of crossroad, market place, administrative centre – town hall, made Dortmund an important centre in Westphalia. It became an Imperial Free City and one of the first cities in Europe with an official Brewing right in 1293. Throughout the 13th to 14th centuries, it was the "chief city" of the Rhine, Westphalia, the Netherlands Circle of the Hanseatic League.
After 1320, the city appeared in writing as "Dorpmunde". In the years leading up to 1344, the English King even borrowed money from well-heeled Dortmund merchant families Berswordt and Klepping, offering the regal crown as security. In 1388, the Count of Mark joined forces with the Archbishop of Cologne and issued declarations of a feud against the town. Following a major siege lasting 18 months, peace negotiations took place and Dortmund emerged victorious. In 1400 the seat of the first Vehmic court (German: Freistuhl) was in Dortmund, in a square between two linden trees, one of which was known as the Femelinde. With the growing influence of Cologne during the 15th century, the seat was moved to Arnsberg in 1437. After Cologne was excluded after the Anglo-Hanseatic War (1470–74), Dortmund was made capital of the Rhine-Westphalian and Netherlands Circle. This favors the founding of one of the oldest schools in Europe in 1543 – Stadtgymnasium Dortmund [de]. In 1661 an earthquake made the Reinoldikirche collapse.
Hörde is borough in the south of the city of Dortmund. Originally Hörde was a separate town (until 1929) and was founded by the Counts of Mark in opposition to their principal enemy, the town of Dortmund. In 1388, the "Großen Dortmunder Fehde" (great feud of Dortmund) took place, where the city of Dortmund battled against the alliance of surrounding towns. The struggle ended in 1390, with defeat for Hörde and its allies of Herdecke, Witten, Bochum, Castrop, Lünen, Unna, and Schwerte. Today Hörde is a part of Dortmund with restored old buildings combined with modern architecture. The Hörder Burg (Hörde castle) was built in the 12th century and is located in the east of the town, close to the Emscher and Lake Phoenix.
Dortmund has 160 schools and 17 business, technical colleges teach more than 85,000 pupils. The city has a 4-year primary education program. After completing primary school, students continue to the Hauptschule, Realschule, Gesamtschule or Gymnasium (college preparatory school). The Stadtgymnasium Dortmund which was founded in 1543 as Archigymnasium is one of the oldest schools in Europe. The Leibniz Gymnasium, a bilingual public school located in the Kreuzviertel district, is particularly popular with children of the English-speaking expatriate community. The school is an International Baccalaureate school. The Goethe-Gymnasium was founded in 1867 as the first school offering higher education to girls in the city. It has been a NRW Sportschule, focused on sports, from 2009.
With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss resolution in 1803, Dortmund was added to the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda, with as a result that it was no longer a free imperial city. William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau did not want stolen areas and therefore let his son Prince Willem Frederik (the later King William I of the Netherlands) take possession of the city and the principality. This prince held its entry on 30 June 1806, and as such the County of Dortmund then became part of the principality. On 12 July 1806, most of the Nassau principalities were deprived of their sovereign rights by means of the Rhine treaty. In October of the same year, the County of Dortmund was occupied by French troops and was added to the Grand Duchy of Berg on 1 March 1808. It is the capital of the Ruhr department. In 1808 Dortmund becomes capital of French satellite Ruhr (department). At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the entire Grand Duchy of Berg, including Dortmund, was added to the Kingdom of Prussia. The state mining authority of the Ruhr area was founded in 1815 and moved from Bochum to Dortmund. Within the Prussian Province of Westphalia, Dortmund was a district seat within Regierungsbezirk Arnsberg until 1875, when it became an urban district within the region.
The Botanischer Garten Rombergpark, or informally Rombergpark, is an extensive municipal arboretum and botanical garden located in the south of the city center of Dortmund. With its total area of 65 hectares the Rombergpark is one of the largest botanical gardens in the world. The garden was established in 1822 as the Romberg family's English landscape park. In 1927–1929 it was acquired by the city and under city planning director Richard Nose enhanced by a small herb garden. The park and castle were badly damaged in World War II, but starting in 1950 director Gerd Krüssmann rebuilt it as an arboretum, adding some 4,500 species to the park. Today the garden contains a historic English landscape park with monuments; an arboretum containing thousands of species of woody plants, including some of the largest trees in North Rhine-Westphalia; a terrace with palm trees; and four greenhouses (1,000 m total area) for cactus and succulents, ferns, tropical plants, and camellias, jasmine, and lemons.
During the industrialisation of Prussia, Dortmund became a major centre for coal and steel. The town expanded into a city, with the population rising from 57,742 in 1875 to 379,950 in 1905. Sprawling residential areas like the North, East, Union and Kreuz district sprang up in less than 10 years. In 1920, Dortmund was one of the centres for resistance to the Kapp Putsch – a right-wing military coup launched against the Social Democratic-led government. Radical workers formed a Red Army who fought the freikorps units involved in the coup. On 11 January 1923, the Occupation of the Ruhr was carried out by the invasion of French and Belgian troops into the Ruhr. The French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré was convinced that Germany failed to comply the demands of the Treaty of Versailles. On the morning of 31 March 1923, it came to the sad culmination of this French-German confrontation.
The city has a long tradition of music and theatre. The orchestra was founded in 1887 and is now called Dortmunder Philharmoniker. The first opera house was built in 1904, destroyed in World War II and opened again in 1966 as Opernhaus Dortmund. It is operated by Theater Dortmund together with other locations, including (since 2002) the Konzerthaus Dortmund. The Konzerthaus Dortmund is listed in the ECHO list as one of the 21 most outstanding concert halls in Europe.
Under Nazi Germany, the Old Synagogue, which had opened in 1900, was destroyed in 1938. With a capacity of 1,300 seats, it was one of the largest Jewish houses of worship in Germany. Also, the Aplerbeck Hospital in Dortmund transferred mentally and/or physically disabled patients to the Hadamar Killing Facility as part of Aktion T4, where they were murdered. An additional 229 children were murdered in the "Children's Specialist Department", which was transferred from Marburg in 1941.
Dortmund was the location of the Stalag VI-D prisoner-of-war camp for Polish, French, Belgian, British, Serbian, Soviet and Italian POWs with some 300 forced labour units in the city alone, a camp for Sinti and Romani people (see Romani Holocaust), and a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp for 800 predominantly Polish women. In September 1943, the local Gestapo carried out a mass execution of 17 Polish POWs, who escaped the Oflag VI-B POW camp, but were soon captured.
Two important daily newspapers are published in and around Dortmund. The conservative Ruhr Nachrichten, also known as RN, was founded in 1949. The RN has a circulation of over 225,000 copies daily. The other important newspaper, the Westfälische Rundschau, was first published in 1945 and has a daily circulation of over 181,000. The WR is published by Germany's third largest newspaper and magazine publisher Funke Mediengruppe.
Bombing targets of the Oil Campaign of World War II in Dortmund included Hoesch-Westfalenhütte AG, the "Hoesch-Benzin GmbH" synthetic oil plant, and the Zeche Hansa. The bombings destroyed about 66% of Dortmund homes. The devastating bombing raids of 12 March 1945 with 1,108 aircraft (748 Lancasters, 292 Halifaxes, 68 Mosquitos) destroyed 98% of buildings in the inner city centre, and 4,851 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Dortmund city centre and the south of the city; this was a record for a single target in the whole of World War II.
Founded around 882, Dortmund became an Imperial Free City. Throughout the 13th to 14th centuries, it was the "chief city" of the Rhine, Westphalia, and the Netherlands Circle of the Hanseatic League. During the Thirty Years' War, the city was destroyed and decreased in significance until the onset of industrialization. The city then became one of Germany's most important coal, steel, and beer centres; as a consequence, it was one of the most heavily bombed cities in Germany during World War II. The devastating bombing raids of 12 March 1945 destroyed 98% of buildings in the inner city centre. The raids, with more than 1,110 aircraft, were the largest for a single target in World War II. Today around 25 % of the city are older than 1945.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Dortmund in April 1945. The US 95th Infantry Division attacked the city on 12 April 1945 against a stubborn German defense. The division, assisted by close air support, advanced through the ruins in urban combat and completed its capture on 13 April 1945.
Post-war, most of the ancient buildings were not restored, and large parts of the city area were completely rebuilt in the style of the 1950s. A few historic buildings such as the main churches Reinoldikirche and Marienkirche were restored or rebuilt, and extensive parks and gardens were laid out. The simple but successful postwar rebuilding has resulted in a very mixed and unique cityscape. Dortmund was in the British zone of occupation of Germany, and became part of the new state (Land) of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1946. The LWL-Industriemuseum was founded in 1969. In 1987 the pit Minister Stein closed, marking the end of more than 150 years of coal mining. Dortmund has since adapted, with its century-long steel and coal industries having been replaced by high-technology areas, including biomedical technology, micro systems technology, and services. This has led Dortmund to become a regional centre for hi-tech industry.
The Westfalenpark is Dortmunds's most popular inner-city park. The park is 72 hectares in size and is one of the largest urban gardens of Germany. It was first opened in 1959 as the second Bundesgartenschau (abbr. BUGA) in North Rhine-Westphalia. With the National Rosarium with 3,000 different rose varieties, theme gardens, an environmental protection centre, the German Cookbook Museum, a geological garden, cafés, and recreation areas, it provides numerous opportunities for a day of diverse activities. Dortmund's Westfalenpark is also a popular location for events in the Ruhr area- with parties, festivals, events, theatre, music, and flea and garden markets. One of the best views across the whole Ruhr valley is offered by the visitors platform and the revolving restaurant in the 209-metre-high Florian tower. Another summer attraction is the chair lift, which opened in 1959 and runs on Sundays between a "Mountain" and "Valley" station 500 metres apart.
Dortmund's population grew rapidly in the time of the 19th century industrialisation, when coal mining and steel processing in the city began. 1904 marks the year when Dortmund saw a population of more than 100,000 for the first time in its history. During the 19th century the area around Dortmund, called Ruhr, attracted up to 500,000 ethnic Poles, Masurians, and Silesians from East Prussia and Silesia, in a migration known as Ostflucht (flight from the east). Most of the new inhabitants came from Eastern Europe, but immigrants also came from France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Almost all their descendants today speak German as a mother tongue, and for various reasons, they do not identify with their Polish roots and traditions; often only their Polish family names remaining as a sign of their past. Not taking the fluctuation of war years into account, the population figures rose constantly to 657,804 in 1965. As a result of the city's post-industrial decline, the population fell to just under 580,000 in 2011. Today, with a population of 601.402 (2017), the City of Dortmund is the eighth largest city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Düsseldorf. It is also the largest city in the Ruhr agglomeration.
Dortmund is home to the sports club Borussia Dortmund, one of the most successful clubs in German football history. Borussia Dortmund are former Bundesliga champions, most recently in 2011–12. Borussia Dortmund won the UEFA Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup in 1997, as well as the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1966. 'Die Borussen' are eight-time German Champions and have won five German Cups. Borussia Dortmund play at Westfalenstadion, currently known as Signal Iduna Park. It was built for the 1974 FIFA World Cup and also hosted some matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. It is Germany's largest football stadium, with a maximum capacity of 81,359 spectators.
TU Dortmund (Technical University of Dortmund) was founded in 1968 and is located in the southern part of the city. It has about 30,000 students and offers a wide range of subjects in of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry, spatial planning, and economics. The university has a dedicated railway station at the campus's main gate, the journey from the city centre lasting merely seven minutes. The university is highly ranked in terms of its research performance in the areas of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry, and economics. The university's most noticeable landmark is the H-Bahn, a monorail train which connects the north and south campuses.
Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts is a Fachhochschule with 12,300 students, and 669 staff, 232 of which are professors. The Fachhochschule was created by a merger of several institutions of higher learning in 1971. Owing to its history as separate institutions, it consists of three campuses in different parts of Dortmund. The departments of mechanical and electrical engineering are located at Sonnenstraße near the city center. The department of design has its own campus at Max-Ophüls-Platz while the departments of social work, economics, computer science and architecture are housed in several buildings next to the Technical University of Dortmund campus in the suburb of Eichlinghofen. Additional offices in the city centre are used for administrative purposes.
The Dortmund Giants, established on 22 May 1980, is an American football team from Dortmund. The official name of the club is 1. Dortmunder Footballclub Dortmund 1980 "Giants" e.V. The club spent the 1994 season in the 2. Bundesliga before dropping for two seasons to the third tier Regionalliga West. Five more 2. Bundesliga seasons followed from 1997 to 2001, the final one in a combined team with the Bochum Cadets as the Dortmund B1 Giants. After a five-season spell in the Regionalliga, the club finished the 2014 season without a win and had to return to the Oberliga once more.
In 2001 a new era began for the district Hörde in Dortmund, 160 years of industrial history ended with the beginning of the Phoenix See. The development of the Phoenix See area was carried out by a subsidiary of the Stadtwerke AG. In 2005 the first cornerstone was laid on the Phoenix area. The work started with full speed to manage the work with over 2.5 million meters of ground motion and 420.000 cubic meters of ferroconcrete. On 1 October 2010, the largest and most highly anticipated milestone could be celebrated: the launch of the flooding of the Phoenix See. Since 9 May 2011, the fences disappeared and the Phoenix See has been completed. In 2009, Dortmund was classified as a Node city in the Innovation Cities Index published by 2thinknow and is the most sustainable city in Germany.
Furthermore, Dortmund is one of the main centres of the Electronic dance music and techno subculture. With the Mayday and Syndicate festivals, the Westfalenhalle Arena has become one of the most important techno strongholds in Europe. After negotiations with several German cities, it was announced that the Love Parade would move to the Ruhr Area for five years (2007–2012). After Essen in 2007 the festival took 2008 place on the Bundesstraße 1 under the motto Highway of Love. The event was planned as a "Love Weekend", with parties throughout the region. For the first time the Turkish electronic scene was represented by its own float, called "Turkish Delights". The official estimate is that 1.6 million visitors attended, making it the largest parade to date.
Cycling in Dortmund is supported by urban planners – an extensive network of cycle paths exists which had its beginnings in the 1980s. Dortmund was admitted to the German "Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle-Friendly Cities and Municipalities in NRW" (AGFS) on August 8, 2007. Dortumund is connected to a number of long-distance cycle paths and a Bike freeway called the Radschnellweg Ruhr (Ruhr Area Fast Cycle Path).
For public transportation, the city has an extensive Stadtbahn and bus system. The Stadtbahn has eight lines (U41 to U47 and U49) serving Dortmund and the large suburb of Lünen in the north. The trains that run on the line are in fact lightrails as many lines travel along a track in the middle of the street instead of underground further from the city centre. The minimum service interval is 2.5 minutes, although the usual pattern is that each line runs at 5 to 10 minute intervals. On Sundays the trains run at a 15-minute interval. In April 2008, the newly constructed east–west underground light rail line was opened, completing the underground service in the city centre and replacing the last trams on the surface.
Dortmund has adapted since the collapse of its century long steel, coal and beer industries. The region has shifted to high technology, robotics, biomedical technology, micro systems technology, engineering, tourism, finance, education, and services, and is thus one of the most dynamic new-economy cities in Germany. In 2009, Dortmund was classified as a Node city in the Innovation Cities Index published by 2thinknow.
In 2009, Dortmund was classified as a Node city in the Innovation Cities Index published by 2thinknow, and in 2014 acclaimed as the most sustainable city in Germany.
The Westenhellweg is a popular shopping destination and with nearly 13,000 visitors per hour it was Germany's most frequented shopping street in 2013. During the Middle Ages, Dortmund was the only free imperial city in Westphalia, having already been regarded as an important centre of trade. Today some of the most reputed shops, department stores have stores here. It is a pedestrian-only area and is bordered by the Reinoldikirche in the east and U-Tower in the west. The Westenhellweg has one of the highest rents for retail and office space in North Rhine-Westphalia. 85 percent of the shops are retail chains such as H&M, Saturn, Esprit, Zara or NewYorker. In 2009 a new shopping mall named Thier-Galerie opened, with nearly 100 stores and chains, including; Armani, Adidas, Diesel, and Hollister.
The Union District is located west of the former ramparts of Dortmund and follows the course of the Westenhellweg. For a long time, the neighbourhood at the Dortmunder U and along the Rheinische Straße was marked by vacancy and social distortion due to structural change. Today it is developing an inspiring young artist scene, with more and more students thanks to cheaper apartments near the university and a vibrant gastronomy. This development benefits strongly from the new, widely visible beacon, the art and creative centre Dortmunder U, opened in 2010. Yet, for a time, it was mainly the Union Gewerbehof activists and other single stakeholders who initiated change.
On 3 November 2013, more than 20,000 people were evacuated after a 4,000-pound bomb from World War II was found. German authorities safely defused the bomb. The bomb was found after analysing old aerial photographs while searching for unexploded bombs dropped by Allied aircraft over Germany's industrial Ruhr region.
As of 2012 , Dortmund had a population of 571,403, of whom about 177,000 (roughly 30%) were of non-German origin. The table shows the number of first and second generation immigrants in Dortmund by nationality as of 31 December 2014. As with much of the Ruhr area, Dortmund has sizable Turkish and South European communities (particularly Spanish), and had one of Germany's most visible Slavic populations.
Dortmund offers a variety of restaurants, bars and clubs. Clubs concentrate in and around the city centre (Wallring) and in the Kreuzviertel district. After the Molotov in Hamburg and the Berghain in Berlin, the FZW (Freizeitzentrum West) in the Union district is one of the three best clubs in Germany. With 307 events in 2015, including concerts, parties, festivals, readings and football public viewings have strengthened the FZW's reputation as an "it club" in the Ruhr region.
Dortmund is also the headquarter of Century Media Records, a heavy metal record label with offices in the United States and London. In August 2015, Century Media was acquired by Sony Music for US$17 million.
Contrary to earlier projections, population figures have been on the rise in recent years due to net migration gains. Dortmund has seen a moderate influx of younger people (18 to 25 years of age) mainly because of its universities. Data of the EU-wide 2011 census revealed massive inaccuracies with regard to German population figures. Consequently, respective figures have been corrected, which resulted in a statistical "loss" of 9,000 inhabitants in Dortmund. In 2016 it was announced that the population was back above 600,000.
Eisadler Dortmund is the city's ice hockey club that plays in Eissportzentrum Westfalenhallen, an indoor sporting arena at the Strobelallee. They played in 2016/17 in the Oberliga, the third level of ice hockey in Germany.
In November 2017, according to a study by data of the German National Statistics Office, the National Employment Agency, Mercer, Handelsblatt, Numbeo, and Immowelt, Dortmund was ranked on position seven of the most livable cities in Germany for expats. In September 2017, The New York Times praised the city of Dortmund, which has been adapting since the collapse of its century-old steel and coal industries and has shifted to high technology biomedical technology, micro systems technology and other services, as the hidden star of structural change providing a good quality of life for employees. According to the 2017 Global Least & Most Stressful Cities Ranking, Dortmund is one of the least stressful cities in the world. It is ranked 27th out of 150, between Copenhagen and Vancouver, and is highly ranked in the categories traffic & public transport, gender equality and debt per capital.
In 2019, the airport served 2,719,563 passengers mainly used for low-cost and leisure charter flights. The closest intercontinental airport is Düsseldorf Airport.
In June 2019 Dortmund hosted the 37th Evangelischer Kirchentag – German Evangelical Church Assembly.
The current Mayor of Dortmund is Thomas Westphal of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2020.
The Dortmund city council (Dortmunder Stadtrat) governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows:
The most recent mayoral election was held on 13 September 2020, with a runoff held on 27 September, and the results were as follows: