City (pop., 2002 est.: 478,600), North Rhine–Westphalia state, western Germany.
It lies at the junction of the Ruhr rivers and is connected with the North Sea ports by the Rhine-Herne Canal. Known to the Romans as Castrum Deutonis, it was mentioned in AD 740 as Diuspargum, a seat of the Frankish kings. It passed to Cleves in 1290 and, with Cleves, to {{link=Brandenburg">Brandenburg in 1614. After suffering heavily in the Thirty Years' War , it revived as the seat of a Protestant university from 1655 to 1818. With increasing industrialization after 1880, it is now one of the world's largest inland ports.