Rhine Neckar Area

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the greater Rhine Neckar area in Germany. See also the German district Rhein-Neckar-Kreis.

Region

Former logo of the Rhein-Neckar-Triangle initiative

The Rhine Neckar Region, often referred to as Rhein-Neckar-Triangle is a metropolitan area located in south western Germany, between Frankfurt and Stuttgart. The area around the major cities Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg has a population of 2.4 million and encompasses territory from three federal states: Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse.

Mannheim watertower

The region named after the rivers Rhine and Neckar is officially recognized as a European Metropolitan Area. It is a successor of the historical Kurpfalz state.

The city of Heidelberg with its castle and its ancient town is a popular tourist destination. Its university is the oldest one in Germany. Mannheim, where Carl Benz invented his first automobile, is on the other hand one of the most important industrial centers of Southern Germany. Its twin city Ludwigshafen across the Rhine river is host of the largest chemical plant of the world, the headquarters of BASF; Walldorf, just south of Heidelberg hosts the headquarters of Europe's largest software company SAP.

The three major cities are surrounded by a diverse and culturally rich region, including the Palatinate with the World Heritage Sites of the Speyer Cathedral and the Lorsch Abbey, the second largest vine region of the country called Deutsche Weinstraße, the pittoresque Neckar valley and the ancient cities of Speyer and Worms.