Where to Stay in Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen

What is Bochum known for?

The German Mining Museum stands as the direct memorial to that, and the Ruhr University Bochum, one of the largest in Germany, supplies the other half of the city's name outside the Ruhr. Nine institutions of higher education work in the city, the Bochum University of Applied Sciences among them. Kunstmuseum Bochum, the Schulmuseum Bochum and the Telephone museum Bochum keep smaller collections, and the Tierpark und Fossilium Bochum sets living animals beside fossil ones.

The Kuhhirtendenkmal remembers the town's cowherd.

What are the main landmarks in Bochum?

Nothing on Bochum's list matches the churches for sheer number. The Lutherkirche, Christuskirche, the Petrikirche, the Pauluskirche, the Johanneskirche and the Melanchthonkirche run the list on their own, and the Immanuelskirche, the Evangelisch-methodistische Auferstehungskirche and Heilig Kreuz extend it. Redemptoristenkloster Bochum holds the monastic end.

Monuments carry the rest of the memory: the Kuhhirtendenkmal in the streets, the Kriegerdenkmal im Stadtpark Bochum among the trees, and the Trauernde Alte standing for grief on its own terms.

What is the history of Bochum?

A cowherd stands for the years before coal. The Kuhhirtendenkmal keeps the memory of a herding town on the Ruhr Heights, and the church list, the Petrikirche and Heilig Kreuz among them, runs back a long way. Then the pits opened.

Coal turned the place into one of the working cities of the Ruhr, alongside Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg, and the German Mining Museum was built to hold that century rather than to decorate it. Pits and mills set the street plan, and the Ruhrlandhalle is one of the big rooms that period left behind. Mining ended; teaching replaced it.

The Ruhr University Bochum grew into one of the ten largest in Germany, the Bochum University of Applied Sciences followed, and nine institutions of higher education between them changed what the city does for a living. Museums record the switch: the Schulmuseum Bochum on schooling, the Telephone museum Bochum on a single technology, the Heimatmuseum Bochum and the Thorpe Heimatmuseum on the districts themselves. The Trauernde Alte and the Kriegerdenkmal im Stadtpark Bochum mark the losses of the twentieth century.

Bochum belongs to Westphalia and to the region of Arnsberg, and it sits inside the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region that grew out of all this industry.

Where is Bochum?

Two rivers frame the city. Bochum stands on the Ruhr Heights hill chain, with the Ruhr to the south and the Emscher to the north, and covers roughly 146 square kilometres at the centre of the Ruhr. Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg are the neighbours in that urban area, and Westphalia is the older name for the ground under all of it.

The Stadtpark Bochum breaks the built-up surface. Administratively the city belongs to the region of Arnsberg and to Nordrhein-Westfalen, and the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region takes in the whole conurbation around it.

What is the climate of Bochum?

Rain is routine. The Ruhr Heights lift the city between the Ruhr and the Emscher, and the result is a mild, damp year in which neither the winter nor the summer goes far towards extremes. Grey days outnumber bright ones through the winter half of the year, which is part of why so much of the city's life happens indoors, in the halls and the museums.

The Stadtpark Bochum shows the seasons best.

How do you get to Bochum?

Everything passes through the Ruhr. Bochum sits at the centre of that urban area, so arrivals come through Dortmund, Essen or Duisburg on the dense network of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region rather than by any single route of its own. Inside the city the tram and bus network carries most of the traffic between the centre, the Ruhr University Bochum and the outer districts.

The German Mining Museum is a short walk from the middle. Only the Tierpark und Fossilium Bochum and the campus really need a ride, and both sit on the same city network as everything else.