North Rhine-Westphalia

North Rhine-Westphalia exists because coal existed—and because the Ruhr Valley industrialized faster than anywhere else in Europe. Germany's most populous state (17.9 million) and largest economy (€872 billion GDP in 2024—first German state to reach $1 trillion) generates one-fifth of national output. If NRW were a country, it would rank 18th globally, ahead of Switzerland or Poland. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region alone accounts for 15% of German GDP—second-largest metro economy in the EU after Paris. Of Germany's top 100 corporations, 37 are headquartered here; 11,500 foreign companies control German or European operations from NRW (nearly a quarter of all foreign companies in Germany). But the state demonstrates ecological succession after industrial peak: the Ruhr, once 'land of coal and steel,' began structural transformation away from extraction in the 1960s. Post-WWII, this region powered the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) that rebuilt Germany. Today the diversified economy balances legacy manufacturing with services, logistics, and increasingly digital industry. The challenge: maintaining economic mass while the old industrial base continues shrinking. By 2026, NRW will remain Germany's economic center of gravity—too large to ignore, too diversified to collapse—while continuing the multi-decade transition from extraction economy to something not yet fully defined.