Leverkusen für...

Schnelleinstieg

»Facts + figures«

Highlights in the city's history

The "Kolonie Wiesdorf II" situated near by the City, buildet 1899-1913.

Leverkusen has existed for more than seventy five years and yet it is in fact much older. Nine of today's thirteen districts were documented as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The City of Leverkusen was born on 1 April 1930 when the communities Schlebusch, Steinbüchel and Rheindorf were merged into the then town of Wiesdorf. The population was 42,000.

Named after an entrepreneur

The city was named after the factory complex on the Rhine that Dr Carl Leverkus had established around his ultramarine factory from 1860 and that had become world famous since the settlement of the "Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. AG" in 1891. In 1955, Leverkusen was an autonomous town and, in 1963, had 100,000 inhabitants. On 1 January 1975, Leverkusen merged with the district town of Opladen (town charter since 1858), the town of Bergisch Neukirchen (town charter since 1857), and the Monheim district of Hitdorf (town charter from 1857 to 1960). The "old" Leverkusen became today's modern city with about 160,000 inhabitants.

Key historical dates

1107/1120              First documented evidence of Wiesdorf
1860/1861            Carl Leverkus builds his ultramarine factory in Wiesdorf and calls
                               the complex   Leverkusen
12 March 1921       Wiesdorf is granted its town charter
1 April 1930           Schlebusch, Steinbüchel and Rheindorf merge into Wiesdorf
                               to form the town of Leverkusen with 42,619 inhabitants
1 April 1955            Leverkusen becomes an autonomous town with 78,623 inhabitants
17 November 1963 Leverkusen becomes a city with 100,000 inhabitants
1 January 1975       The towns Leverkusen-Opladen and Bergisch Neukirchen and the Monheim district
                               Hitdorf merge to form the new autonomous city of Leverkusen
                                with about 170,000 inhabitants

1168                        The first documented evidence of Opladen
1858                        Opladen is granted its town charter
1914                        Opladen becomes a district town
1 January 1975        Opladen merges into Leverkusen

1223                        First documented evidence of Neukirchen
1857                        Neukirchen awarded its town charter
1904                        Name changes to Bergisch Neukirchen following integration in the railway network
1 January 1975        Neukirchen merges into Leverkusen

1151                         First documented evidence of Hitdorf
1356                         Hitdorf is first documented as a Rhine harbour
1857                         Hitdorf is awarded its town charter
1960                         Hitdorf is incorporated within Monheim
1 January 1975         Incorporation into Leverkusen

The Leverkusen coat of arms

The coat of arms displays a blue-crowned, langued, and unguled double-tailed red lion on a silver background, behind a black embattled bar. The new City of Leverkusen came into being on 1 January 1975. Until 1976, Leverkusen bore the Wiesdorf coat of arms, a reproduction of the Wiesdorf lay judge's seal (1567) representing the Berg lion and the Rhine ferry. Since the coats of arms borne by the formerly autonomous towns of Bergisch Neukirchen (1929) and Hitdorf (1931) also depicted the Berg lion, this figure was chosen for the new coat of arms and the embattled bar adopted from the Opladen coat of arms (1883), the first coat of arms borne by the Count of Berg.
(Translated from Rolf Nagel's "Rheinisches Wappenbuch", Cologne, 1986)

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