Nordstad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nordstad is a development area in north-central Luxembourg, and a colloquial term to refer to the combined urban areas in the region. The name is Luxembourgish for 'northern city', but it remains the title, both formal and informal, of the region in any language.
Nordstad includes a total of fourteen communes, predominantly in the canton of Diekirch, but also including communes in Mersch and Vianden.
The fourteen communes are:
- Diekirch canton: Bettendorf, Bourscheid, Diekirch, Ermsdorf, Erpeldange, Ettelbruck, Feulen, Medernach, Mertzig, Reisdorf, and Schieren.
- Mersch canton: Colmar-Berg and Nommern.
- Vianden canton: Tandel.
Altogether, the fourteen communes have a population of 30,776, or approximately 7% of Luxembourg's total population. This is over an area of 281.0 km², which is 11% of Luxembourg's territory. Thus, the whole Nordstad region is more sparsely populated than Luxembourg as a whole, despite Nordstad's name.
[edit] Core communes
Development activity in Nordstad is concentrated on the centre, and most urbanised area, formed by the five core communes of Bettendorf, Diekirch, Erpeldange, Ettelbruck, and Schieren. All of them are in Diekirch canton, and lie in the valley of the middle Sauer. Of the five, Diekirch and Ettelbruck have city status and rank within the top twenty most-populated communes in the Grand Duchy.
As of 2005, the five communes within the core of Nordstad have a combined population of 19,375; this would rank Nordstad as third amongst Luxembourg's cities (after Luxembourg City and Esch-sur-Alzette, but larger than Differdange and Dudelange). However, this population is spread over an area of 55.98 km², four times the size of Esch. As the government development agency, the IVL, recognises, for Nordstad to develop into a coherent urban area in actuality and in the public imagination, Nordstad must grow and its existing towns and cities must become more integrated with one another.
