Where I am from
Nord Rhine Westphalia, or in short NRW, is a “federal state”(Bundesland) in Germany. It is the fourth biggest, of sixteen federal states in Germany. The biggest and most popular cities of North Rhine Westphalia are Cologne (Koeln), Duesseldorf, Essen and Dortmund. The population of NRW is about 17.8 million.

Politics
The very main parties of NRW are the SPD (Social democrat Party of Germany) and the CDU (Christian Democratic Party) since 1949. Germany is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, the people which have the German citizenship and are 18 or over, can vote for a group of people. These elected groups are able to create laws of government, which need to be signed by the federal state prime minister and have to be correct in basic law, to their own behalf.

Essen
The city Essen is the fourth largest city in NRW and it is my home city too. The population is about 566.800 people and the area is 210.40 square miles. Essen won the title Green Capital of Europe of 2017 and is a popular city in NRW. The public transport is a very important point in whole Germany, especially in popular and large towns it’s used by nearly all students and college students. Large towns like Duesseldorf are easy to reach and it makes it much more favorable, then driving by car, not to forget is the traffic. My friends and me have to drive to our school by public transports likes buses or trains, because the schools in Germany have no extra school buses. The city is divided into smaller parts for the people who live there, there are about 51 parts.

My personal list of places you should visit in NRW
Dortmunder Weihnachtsmarkt (Chistmas market)
Is one of the largest and most beautiful Christmas markets in Germany. There are about 300 stands of Christmas decoration, toys, food and drinks and everything for the advent season to find. The huge Christmas tree in the center of the Christmas market is 50 yards high and has about 48000 lights on.

Koelner Dom
The Cologne Cathedral is Roman Catholic church. The constructions started in 1248 and is still a popular place to visit. The church was finally completely finished in 1880. It has a lot history, but the main idea behind the new cathedral was to rebuild a church ,which was destroyed by a fire and sanctified in 870. When I was younger we always tried to count the steps, there are 533 steps to walk to reach the highest place.

Zeche Zollverein
Zeche Zollverein is an old coal mine industry, it was active until 1986 and over 8,000 mineworkers worked at Zeche Zollverein. Today the huge coal instustry contains a museum and an ice skate rink and large event locations. You can also find lots of culture art in different gallery exhibitions, most of the time the galleries have time periods and then they switch the theme. Really popular is the largest cokery of the world and from central Europe, here you can get a unique behind-the-scenes tour, about 1.5 million visitors from all over the world come to see the unique industry architecture of Nord Rhine Westphalia. In my opinion is the best thing about the compound, that the old industrial complex was changed into a modern version, for people who are interested in the coal and miners culture. It is also very tourist and family friendly, I’m sure everybody would find something that they would interest. I really like the coal mine museum, there you can learn much about the history and you can actually, see, touch and hear how it was like to be a mine worker.

Rheinuferpromenade
From the Rheinuferpromenade you can see the Rhine and watch huge boats driving past you. It was planned by Niklaus Fritschi. The Rhineuferpromenade was designed in the years of 1990 to 1997. The river promenade is connected to the Altstadt (old part of the city) and the Medienhafen (media harbor). The Rhine promenade is a beautiful, but also a crowded place. The café’s and Bars are most of the time completely full. It is a symbol of joy of living of the Duesseldorfer people.

Villa Huegel
Villa Huegel was built in 1873, by the industry family “Krupp”. It was the Krupp residence and is a popular place to visit today. Not only tourists make trips to the old residence, many schools make trips to Essen to see how the Villa Huegel looks like and learn about the popular industry family and especially Alfred Krupp. Alfred Krupp was very famous because of his worldwide sale of steel cannons. His father left him the secret how to produce high quality and long lasting steel.

Grugapark
The park is also located in the city Essen and is famous for a wonderful botanic park. Many artists there combine gardening with art and create beautiful sculptures out of flowers. The Grugapark has also a roller skating rink, where I usually have roller figure skating practice. People can go there and lend roller skates and try a completely different sport out. My friends and I used to compete there too when I was in Germany, the rink has enough space for more than 100 people to watch the figure skaters. Many events take place in the Grugapark, for example lots of concerts and guided tours during the night, to see the there living bats are possible as well.