Every design for Lünen

Lünen is known for a world first that rarely makes the guidebooks. In 2009 a biogas plant was built here, and Lünen became the first city in the world to receive electricity through public utilities generated from animal waste. It is also the largest town in the Unna district, a former member of the Hanseatic League and a place where the industrial Ruhr and the farmland of the Münsterland meet.

Lünen lies on both banks of the River Lippe, just north of Dortmund, whose suburbs run straight into its southern districts. The Datteln-Hamm Canal passes to the south, the little Seseke joins the Lippe south-east of the centre, and to the north the countryside around Altlünen already feels like the Münsterland. Everyday life moves easily between these worlds: errands in town, a walk through the Lippe meadows, an afternoon at the Seepark Lünen, a visit to Schloß Schwansbell or the Museum Stadt Lünen. In the south, the old mining past still shows in the houses, a reminder of what lies beneath the streets.

And then there is the Alter Hafenkran, an old crane standing over the water like a signpost: one look at its outline and you know exactly which town you are in.