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[[File:Ruhr area-map.png|thumb|right|420px|The Ruhr Area]]
The '''Ruhr Area''', also called simply Ruhr, (German: ''Ruhrgebiet'') is an urban area in [[North Rhine-Westphalia]], [[Germany]], consisting of a number of large formerly industrial cities, including [[Duisburg]], [[Oberhausen]], [[Bottrop]], [[Mülheim an der Ruhr]], [[Essen]], [[Gelsenkirchen]], [[Bochum]], [[Herne]], [[Hamm]], [[Hagen]], [[Dortmund]], [[Wesel]], [[Recklinghausen]], [[Unna]] and [[Ennepe-Ruhr]]. It has about five million inhabitants and is thus significally bigger than Berlin, Hamburg or Munich.
Altough, there is a very high density of motorways, hitchhiking there is quite trickybecause of the maze of minor motorways. Major motorways in this area are the [[A1 (Germany)|A1]], [[A2 (Germany)|A2]] and [[A3 (Germany)|A3]].
On the one hand, there is a lot of local traffic and even though there will be a lot of cars and usually many traffic jams, the most cars won't go in your direction.
When coming from the West, it will be quite difficult to cross the Area. A good place could be the service area ''Ohligser Heide'', close to [[Düsseldorf]], which is difficult to reach by hitching, but easy to reach by public transport.
== Hitching out ==
Good places to hitch out of the Ruhr Area are few and far between. You'll usually have to find a sympathetic person to drop you off there, or spend a bit of time on the VRR website to figure out what buses/trams to take and where to change.
=== Towards Cologne and the South ===
The A52 runs through Essen and Mühlheim and joins the A3 running between the Dutch border in the North and Cologne/Frankfurt in the South. There's a good on-ramp onto the A52 near the Essen/Mühlheim air strip, reachable by bus (to a stop called "Abzweig Flughafen"); with dense traffic even on Sundays. Take a sign saying A3 south. There's service areas before Cologne, so you'll have the chance to change rides there.
=== Towards the Netherlands (North-west) ===
Compare instructions to go to Cologne, just have your sign say A3 north.
=== Towards Bremen/Hannover, the North and the East ===
== Public transport ==
