Antique map - Duisburg 1917

Pharus-Plan of Duisburg (Duisburg) in 1917: the Ruhr's great river port, Ruhrort, the city of Mercator, four years before the French occupation.

This Pharus-Plan shows Duisburg, Duisburg in German, in 1917, at the mouth of the Ruhr into the Rhine. The city was then Prussian, in the province of the Rhine, and had just changed scale: it became a large city (Großstadt) in 1904, then absorbed Ruhrort and Meiderich in 1905 to form "Groß-Duisburg". It is now located in North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), west of the Ruhr.

Duisburg also has a recent French history. Having passed under French rule during the time of Napoleon, the region returned to Prussia in 1816. And four years after the map, on March 8, 1921, French and Belgian troops occupied Duisburg, Düsseldorf, and Ruhrort, the "sanction cities" (Sanktionsstädte), and controlled the export of coal, steel, and finished products from the ports. In January 1923, the occupation extended to the entire Ruhr. The French troops did not leave Duisburg until August 25, 1925.

Places and neighborhoods shown:

• The ports of Ruhrort - the first Ruhrort basin was built in 1716. Between 1903 and 1908, the Hafenkanal was dug with basins A, B, and C, which the map names, as well as the Kaiserhafen, Südhafen, and Nordhafen. In 1905, the state ports in Ruhrort, the municipal ports of Duisburg, and the railway ports in Hochfeld and Ruhrort were united: this is the origin of the port of Duisburg, presented as the largest river port in Europe, and even in the world according to some sources.
• The Innenhafen and the old town - the inner port (Innen-Hafen) was the city's main port until the 1960s. Since 1990, according to a plan by Norman Foster, it has become an office and residential district. Just a stone's throw away, the Salvatorkirche, whose Gothic construction began in 1316, dominates the old town. The cartographer Gerhard Mercator settled in Duisburg in 1552 and lived there until his death in 1594.
• Neuenkamp - from 1900 to 1905, the city of Duisburg built a large competing port to that of Ruhrort in Neuenkamp, which the map names south of the old town. It abandoned it in 1905, when the two ports merged.
• Meiderich and Ruhrort - the map names "Duisburg-Meiderich" and "Duisburg-Ruhrort", the two former cities absorbed in 1905: Ruhrort has had city rights since 1857, Meiderich since 1895. A "Geplanter Stadtpark", a planned municipal park, is designed in Meiderich.
• The train stations - the map names the Hauptbahnhof, the Meiderich Süd, Ruhrort, and Hochfeld Süd stations, as well as the freight station (Güterbahnhof). The Cologne-Minden railway line has been connected to the ports since 1847.
• Hochfeld and the Rhine - on the bank of the Rhine, to the southeast, the map locates the Hochfeld neighborhood and, in an inset at the bottom right, Wanheimerort, indicated as the "continuation of the main map".

Cartographic reference: this "Pharus-Plan Duisburg" belongs to the same series as the plans of Berlin, Aachen, Bremen, Breslau, Koblenz, Cologne, Darmstadt, and Dresden from 1917, with the train stations in red, the churches drawn in perspective, and the Magdeburgische Zeitung banners at the top and bottom. The legend distinguishes the railways, trams (Strassenbahn), and schools, and a grid of letters and numbers allows you to locate each place.

In short: for anyone with ties to Duisburg or the Ruhr, interested in the ports, industry, or the French-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr, this map shows the largest inland port in Europe shortly after its 1905 merger and four years before the French troops.

What area does this map of Duisburg cover? It covers Duisburg and its surroundings, at the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine: the old town and the Innenhafen, the ports of Ruhrort, the neighborhoods of Meiderich, Hochfeld, and Neuenkamp, and Wanheimerort in an inset.

In what year was this map published? This map dates from 1917. It was published by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Reproduction of the "Pharus-Plan Duisburg", published in 1917 by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Printed on 200 g/m² textured art paper. Landscape orientation, standard 50x70cm and 70x100cm formats: easy to frame.