This article is about the town Alsdorf in NRW Germany, for other meanings of Alsdorf you can have a look at Alsdorf (disambiguation).
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Alsdorf
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Location of the town of Alsdorf within Aachen district
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| Coordinates | |
| Administration | |
| Country | Germany |
| State | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| Admin. region | Cologne |
| District | Aachen |
| Town subdivisions | 16 |
| Mayor | Alfred Sonders (SPD) |
| Basic statistics | |
| Area | 31.658 km2 (12.223 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 163 m (535 ft) |
| Population | 45,522 (31 December 2010)[1] |
| - Density | 1,438 /km2 (3,724 /sq mi) |
| Other information | |
| Time zone | CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) |
| Licence plate | AC |
| Postal code | 52477 |
| Area code | 02404 |
| Website | www.alsdorf.de |
Alsdorf (German pronunciation: [ˈalsdɔʁf]) is a municipality in the district of Aachen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Until the 21st century Alsdorf was a mining area, but by now many service companies have established themselves in Alsdorf. Besides, Alsdorf has an indoor arena, a cinema, a mining museum and a zoo.
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Alsdorf is located near the border triangle Germany/Belgium/Netherlands in the Western of Germany. Communes bordering Alsdorf are Baesweiler, Aldenhoven, Eschweiler, Würselen, Herzogenrath und Übach-Palenberg. Alsdorf belongs to the district of Aachen. One of Alsdorfs sights is the old Castle and the mineing museum.
The today´s city of Alsdorf is a very complex construction of very different ingredients. On the one hand, a part of today's city was a part of the duchy of Limburg (later united with duchy of Brabant) and one part belonged to the territory of the duchy of Jülich. On the other hand, Alsdorf conists of old settlements whose history date back to medieval times and of settlements which have arisen because of the long coal mining tradition in Alsdorf.
The old settlements are: Alsdorf, Bettendorf, Hoengen, Ofden, Schaufenberg, Warden and Zopp.
The name Alsdorf was mentioned for the first time in a document of the catholic church in the year 1191. But it might be much older than 800 years. The residents of Alsdorf and the other villages, earned their money with farming like it was common before the industrial revolution.
In the past Alsdorf changed a few times its affiliation . With the duchy of Brabant & the duchy of Limburg it belonged to the duchy of Burgundy (1430) and fell to the Habsburgs in 1482. In 1555 it fell to the Spanish Habsburgs as part of the Spanish Netherlands. In 1714 it belonged again to Austrian Habsburgs until the French invasion, and than after a judgement of the congress of Vienna Alsdorf belonged to Prussia.
With the reconstructing of Germany after the Second World War, Prussia was terminated. Its western provinces are now the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Alsdorf belongs to.
Until the middle of the 19th Century farming was the main activity. Only Alsdorf (approximately 1,200) and Hoengen (about 1,400) had more than 1,000 inhabitants. Total in the area of today's Alsdorf lived nearly 4,000 people.
Today the population is more than ten times larger. This is a result of mining, which came to Alsdorf in the middle of the 19th Century. In 1849 the coal production started in the coal mine of Hoengen, the mine was called Maria and in 1853 the coal production started in the coal mine of Alsdorf which was called Anna. The population of Alsdorf increased through the coal very fast .
The mining industry needed many workers. First, it was possible to cover the demand with local workers but such as the mine grew also the demand of workers grew. To be an attractive employer, the mine company built lot of new houses to offer its employees good working conditions. During the years 1860 and 1960 a few bigger and smaller villages were founded. These villages are: Begau, Blumenrath, Broicher Siedlung, Busch, Kellersberg, Mariadorf, Neuweiler, Ofden, Ost and Zopp.
How dangerous the work of a miner is showed the great tragedy on October 21st, 1930 in mine Anna II, 270 men and 1 woman were killed by this disaster. It was the second largest mining accident in Germanys history.
In the year 1932 the villages Kellerberg, Ofden, Schaufenberg, Neuweiler were incorporated and the population grew from 11,500 to 19 711.
After the Second World War, the demand for coal was very big. This was the reason for an increase of production and workforce, this was particularly measurable in mine Anna but not in mine Maria which was closed by September 1962. Unfortunately, the coal crisis has not speared Alsdorf and the last mine was closed in 1992.
Since this time Alsdorfs tries to change its image away from a coal city to a modern business location and this with success, a few business parks have been founded a lot of companies have located.
Alsdorf is divided in 16 districts:
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The situation in Alsdorfs council after the last election[2] in 2009
| Party | % | places in council |
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| SPD | 41,4 | 16 |
| CDU | 29,4 | 6 (11) |
| ABU | 0,0 | 5 |
| Grüne | 8,2 | 3 |
| FDP | 6,3 | 2 |
| FWA | 5,8 | 2 |
| REP | 4,5 | 2 |
| Linke | 4,3 | 2 |
For a long time coal mining was the heart of Alsdorfs economy. The last mine was closed in the 90s. Besides accured companys, which either used the closeness to RWTH Aachen or which saw the favourable location near the boarders to Belgium and the Netherlands as advantage.
Alsdorfs biggest employeer is the Cinram GmbH with appx. 2000[3] employees in district of Schaufenberg. This company produces daily up to 2 Millionen DVDs, Blu-rays and CDs , packaged and delivered to well known customers in whole Europe. The company was founded in 1975 by Warner Music and sold in 2003 to the Canadian stock cooperation Cinram International. customers are e.g. well known record labels and media concerns like Warner Music, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures.
Alsdorf is located central in the heart of Europe. In a distance of appx. 200km the most important economic centeres of the European Union are achievable. The town lies central in the tri-boarder region Germany / Netherlands / Belgium. The nearest airports are Maastricht Aachen Airport, Cologne Bonn Airport and Düsseldorf International Airport
Alsdorf has a direct connection to Bundesautobahn 4 and Bundesautobahn 44 both are German freeways.
Furthermore Alsdorf provides a very good bus system, every part of Alsdorf or Aachen is achievable with the busses of ASEAG, the local bus company.
Sice 2005 Alsdorf is connected with the regional train and the railway network is extended steadily, hence you can reach Mariadorf since 2011 by regional train.
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