SIEGEN

city, North RhineWestphalia Land (state), northwestern Germany, on the Sieg River. Its two castles were formerly seats of two branches of the house of Nassau-Siegen. The Lower Castle (former residence of the Protestant branch) has an interesting royal crypt, and in the Upper Castle (Roman Catholic branch) is a local museum. The late Romanesque 13th-century St. Nicholas Church is one of the few hexagonal Romanesque churches north of the Alps. The foundations of St. Martin's Church are over 1,000 years old, on the evidence of the mosaic floor. The city is the centre of the rich Siegerland iron-ore mining district and has metalworking and machine-building industries. In 1972 a university-level technical institution was founded there. The Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens was born in Siegen in 1577. Pop. (1993 est.) 111,130.