Duisburg

Duisburg, a town of Rhenish Prussia, 16 miles N. of Düsseldorf by rail, in a fertile district between the Ruhr and the Rhine, with both of which it is connected by a canal. One of its five churches, St Salvator's, is notable, dating from the 15th century. Its manufactures are numerous and important, including tobacco, soda, sulphuric acid and other chemicals, soap, candles, starch, and sugar; and in and near the place are great ironworks and coal-mines. There is considerable river shipping. Pop. (1816) 4508; (1885) 47,561 (nearly half of whom are Protestants). Duisburg is an ancient town. In the 13th century it was a member of the Hanseatic League, and afterwards a free town of the German empire, but at the close of the war in 1815 it became finally Prussian.