Siegen is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of the North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate.
It is a Große kreisangehörige Stadt (lit. "Big town belonging to a district", but meaning a town that exercises certain functions usually exercised by the district, without actually being a district-free city). It is in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in Arnsberg region. The university town (12,500 students in the 2005-2006 winter semester) is the district seat, and it is ranked as a "higher centre" (in terms of Walter Christaller's Central Place Theory) in the South Westphalian urban agglomeration.
In 1975, in the process of municipal reforms and amalgamations, the town's population exceeded the 100,000 mark, making Siegen a city. |
