Selm
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Selm is a town in the district of Unna, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Dortmund and 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Hamm.
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[edit] Geography
The town belongs to the southern part of the Münsterland and to the eastern part of the Ruhrgebiet. It is surrounded by (beginning in the west) Olfen, Lüdinghausen, Nordkirchen (all in the district of Coesfeld), Werne, Lünen (both in the district of Unna), Waltrop, and Datteln (belonging to the district of Recklinghausen).
[edit] History
Selm is very old. The first traces of living people are from the younger half of the stone age.
The name Selm was written down first in 858, but with the name Seliheim, which means the home of the blessed people (blessed home).
In earlier times Selm was ruled by the county of Cappenberg, then by the bishop of Münster. In the beginning of the 19th century it was transferred to Prussia, where it stayed in the province of Westphalia until 1946.
In 1906 the coal mine Zeche Hermann was established. They had to transport the coal from about 1,200 m under the earth. The coal miners and their families lived in Beifang which had in the origin a very rural landscape. The number of inhabitants increased from 2,000 to 10,000 in only one year. About 3,500 coal miners had work. But in 1926 the coal mine was closed. The number of men without work was so high, that Selm got to be very poor. It was the poorest village in Prussia and needed a lot of help during the following years.
After the second world war many men mainly living in Beifang worked in Lünen, in a coal mine called Zeche Minister Achenbach. They were brought to that coal mine by buses. After 1965 when the houses in Beifang were sold a lot of people from the south (Dortmund, Lünen, ...) came to Selm to live there.
In 1975 Selm was enlarged. Bork, a village in the southern neighbourhood, got to be a part of Selm that obtained city status in 1977.
[edit] Inhabitants
There were a number of inhabitants living in the town called Selm at the end of the indicated year:
[edit] External links
 Cities and towns in Unna (district)
Bergkamen | Bönen | Fröndenberg | Holzwickede | Kamen | Lünen | Schwerte | Selm | Unna | Werne |
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