Germany · Nordrhein-Westfalen · Essen
Karnap, Essen — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Karnap is the northernmost district of Essen and the only one north of the Emscher, first documented in 1332 as Carnap.
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Where to stay in Karnap
How the choice of base plays out on the ground.
Essen's centre is well to the south. Karnap measures a little over two kilometres from north to south and rather less across, with Bottrop to the west, Gladbeck to the north and Gelsenkirchen to the east, so three other cities are closer than most of its own. The Emscherpark is the green here.
It was laid out in the early 1970s on a former rubble tip beside the Emscher, north of the Rhein-Herne-Kanal, and is meadow and woodland. Beds belong in Essen proper.
About Karnap
What are the main landmarks in Karnap?
A winding wheel stands at the Arenbergstraße stop. It came from the Zeche Mathias Stinnes shafts three and four in Brauck and was put up in 1982 to mark what coal meant here. The waste plant is the big structure.
The Müllheizkraftwerk Essen-Karnap burns for Bottrop, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Gladbeck and Mülheim an der Ruhr together, and it was made in the early 1960s by rebuilding a coal-fired power station. Essen's lowest ground is in this district. It lies at twenty-six and a half metres above sea level, which is what comes of being the only quarter north of the Emscher.
What is the history of Karnap?
Carnap is named in a document of 1332. The spelling kept its C until 1910, and the old Bauerschaft belonged to the municipality of Altenessen formed in 1808 and so, from 1813, to the Bürgermeisterei Altenessen. Independence lasted a few years.
When that Bürgermeisterei went into Essen in 1915 Karnap left it and stood on its own, with Carl Hold as mayor, until Essen took it in August 1929. Coal ran the place for a century. The Mathias-Stinnes-Siedlung was built for the men of the Zeche Mathias Stinnes, and into the 1950s the district held more jobs than people.
Decline came through the 1960s. The pit closed at the end of December 1972, and in barely a decade more than six thousand jobs had gone.
Where is Karnap?
Karnap is the northernmost district of Essen and the only one north of the Emscher, bounded south by the Rhein-Herne-Kanal against Altenessen and Vogelheim, with Bottrop west, Gladbeck north and Gelsenkirchen east.
More areas in Essen
Updated September 2026