Siegen

Siegen: Lower Castle

Siegen, city, North Rhine–Westphalia Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on the Sieg River, south of Arnsberg. The first mention of Siegen was in the late 11th century, and the town was incorporated in 1224. Its two castles were formerly seats of two branches of the house of Nassau-Siegen. The Lower Castle (former residence of the Protestant branch) has an interesting royal crypt, and the Upper Castle (Roman Catholic branch) features the Siegerland Museum, which contains a gallery dedicated to the work of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, who was born in Siegen in 1577. The late Romanesque 13th-century St. Nicholas Church is one of the few hexagonal Romanesque churches north of the Alps. On the basis of the evidence of the mosaic floor, the foundations of St. Martin’s Church date from more than 1,000 years ago. Siegen was the centre of the once-rich but now idle Siegerland iron-ore mining district. Metalworking and machine-building industries are now the economic mainstays. The city is the seat of the University of Siegen (founded 1972). Pop. (2003 est.) 107,768.