Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Statistics State: North Rhine-Westphalia Adm. Region: Cologne Capital: Düren Area: 941.15 km² Inhabitants: 266,457 (2000) pop. density: 283 inh./km² Car identification: DN Homepage: http://www.kreis-dueren.de Map Düren is a Kreis (district) in the west of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Heinsberg, Neuss, Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Euskirchen and Aachen. Table of contents 1 History 2 Geography 3 Coat of arms 4 Towns and municipalities 5 External links History The district was created in 1972 by merging the former districts of Jülich and Düren. Both districts date back to 1816 when the new prussian province Rhineland was created. Before the Napoleonic Wars all of the area belonged to the dukedom Jülich. Geography Geographically it covers both the lowlands of the Niederrheinische Bucht as well as the hills of the Eifel. The district has rich Lignite (brown coal) deposits, which is used in open pit mining. Another big industry is paper production, which dates back to the second part of the 16th century. The main river in the district is the Rur. Coat of arms The coat of arms show the lion from the city of Jülich in the upper part. In the bottom it has a paper roll with the capital letter D for Düren, because the paper industry has long history. The coat of arms were granted in 1942. Towns and municipalities Düren Heimbach Jülich Linnich Nideggen Municipalities Aldenhoven Hürtgenwald Inden Kreuzau Langerwehe Merzenich Niederzier Nörvenich Titz Vettweiß External links Official website (German) This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.