The Ruhr referred to as Ruhr district, Ruhr region, Ruhr area or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km2 and a population of over 5 million, it is the largest urban area in Germany and the second largest in the European Union, it consists of several large cities bordered by the rivers Ruhr to the south, Rhine to the west, Lippe to the north. In the southwest it borders the Bergisches Land, it is considered part of the larger Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region of more than 10 million people, among the largest in Europe. The Ruhr cities are, from west to east: Duisburg, Bottrop, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Dortmund, Lünen, Bergkamen and the rural districts of Wesel, Recklinghausen and Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis; the most populous cities are Dortmund and Duisburg. In the Middle Ages, the Hellweg was an important trade route from the region of the lower Rhine to the mountains of the Teutoburg Forest; the most important towns of the region from Duisburg to the imperial city of Dortmund were concentrated along the Hellweg from the Rhineland to Westphalia.

Since the 19th century, these cities have grown together into a large complex with a vast industrial landscape, inhabited by some 7.3 million people. The Ruhr area has no administrative center. For 2010, the Ruhr region was one of the European Capitals of Culture; the urban landscape of the Ruhr extends from the Lower Rhine Basin east to the Westphalian Plain and south to the hills of the Rhenish Massif. Through the centre of the Ruhr runs a segment of the loess belt that extends across Germany from west to east; this loess belt has underlain some of Germany's richest agricultural regions. Geologically, the region is defined by coal-bearing layers from the upper Carboniferous period; the coal seams reach the surface in a strip along the river Ruhr and dip downward from the river to the north. Beneath the Lippe, the coal seams lie at a depth of 600 to 800 metres; the thickness of the coal layers ranges from one to three metres. This geological feature played a decisive role in the development of coal mining in the Ruhr.

According to the Regionalverband Ruhr, 37.6% of the region's area is built up. A total of 40.7% of the region's land remains in agricultural use. Forests account for 17.6%, bodies of water and other types of land use occupy the rest. The inclusion of four rural districts in the otherwise industrial Ruhr helps to explain the large proportion of agricultural and forested land. In addition, the city boroughs of the Ruhr region have outlying districts with a rural character. Seen on a map, the Ruhr could be considered a single city, since—at least in the north–south dimension—there are no visible breaks between the individual city boroughs, thus the Ruhr is described as a polycentric urban area, which shares a similar history of urban and economic development. Because of its history, the Ruhr is structured differently from monocentric urban regions such as Berlin and London, which developed through the rapid merger of smaller towns and villages with a growing central city. Instead, the individual city boroughs and urban districts of the Ruhr grew independently of one another during the Industrial Revolution.

The population density of the central Ruhr is about 2,100 inhabitants per square kilometre —low compared to other German cities. Between the constituent urban areas are open suburbs and some open land with agricultural fields. In some places, the borders between cities in the central Ruhr are unrecognizable due to continuous development across them. Replanting of brownfield land has created new parks and recreation areas; the Emscher Landschaftspark lies along the river Emscher virtually an open sewer, parts of which have undergone natural restoration. This park connects strips of parkland running from north to south, which were developed through regional planning in the 1920s, to form a green belt between the Ruhr cities from east to west. During the Middle Ages, much of the region, called the Ruhrgebiet was situated in the County of Mark, the Duchies of Cleves and Berg and the territories of the bishop of Münster and the archbishop of Cologne; the region included some villages and castles, was agrarian: its loess soil made it one of the richer parts of western Germany.

The free imperial city of Dortmund was the trading and cultural centre, lying on the Hellweg, an important east-west trading route, that brought prosperity to the town of Duisburg. Both towns were members of the Hanseatic League; the development of the region into an urbanized industrial area started in the late 18th century with the early industrialisation in the nearby Wupper Valley in the Bergisches Land. By around 1820, hundreds of water-powered mills were producing textiles, lumber and iron in automated processes here, and in more workshops in the hills skilled workers manufactured knives, tools and harnesses, using water and charcoal. History has no established name for this phase of the industrial revolution, but one could call it the early water-powered industrial revolution; as the machines became bigger and moved from water power to steam power, locally mined coal and charcoal became

The Gilman and Springfield Railroad was a railroad of 111 miles in length, chartered in 1867, that operated from 1871 until 1877 in the U. S. state of Illinois. It provided service from Springfield, the state capital, to Gilman, a junction point on the main line of the much larger Illinois Central Railroad. After operation for a short period as an independent short line, the Gilman and Springfield underwent financial failure and was merged into the Chicago and Springfield Railroad, an affiliate of the Illinois Central; the late 1860s and early 1870s, the period following the American Civil War, was a boom time in the construction of American steam railroads, with investment capital abundant and rails laid to a large number of rural towns and counties that had not enjoyed service. The Gilman and Springfield was an example of this phenomenon, its backers were aware of a triangular, underserved slice of Illinois agricultural land in east-central Illinois. By building a competing railroad line through Mount Pulaski, Farmer City, Gibson City, the new railroad could serve this slice of rural Illinois.

In particular, the new railroad became the prime provider of railroad service to much of agricultural DeWitt County. The new railroad acquired a charter in 1867 and began grading and planning the roadbed in 1870; the new railroad ran its first train in October 1871. Soon afterwards, the Long Depression of the mid-1870s caused a sharp slowdown in economic activity throughout the United States, the new railroad defaulted on the debt it had sold to build its main line. Litigation showed that the young railroad's financial status had been doomed by Gilded Age conduct that approached, or crossed the line, into deliberate looting; the fledgling rail line's board of directors had borrowed $4.0 million and hired a contractor, the Morgan Improvement Company, to build the line. The Morgan Improvement Company paid $1.5 million to build the line, leaving $2.5 million in profits for itself of which a substantial share was paid in bribes, to the members of the Gilman line's board of directors. The Morgan Improvement Company was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The failure of the Gilman and Springfield indirectly sparked litigation that included a case heard by the United States Supreme Court, Hinckley v. Gilman Clinton and Springfield Railroad, 94 U. S. 467. Meanwhile, the right-of-way built for the Gilman and Springfield became a separately-incorporated branch line, called the Chicago and Springfield, of the more financially stable Illinois Central; the branch line operated as such from 1877 until shortly after 1899, when the IC acquired a second segment of railroad line, a former chunk of the St. Louis and Northern Railway, thereby allowing the former Gilman line to become part of a second main line from Chicago to St. Louis; the Chicago and Springfield charter served no further purpose, was wound up in 1902. Illinois Route 54 exactly parallels the route of the former Gilman and Springfield. Passenger train service ceased in 1971

KPOJ is a radio station serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U. S. state of Oregon and neighboring Washington. It airs a sports talk format, is affiliated with Fox Sports Radio. Prior to November 9, 2012, the station aired an influential progressive talk format, its transmitter is located in Sunnyside and its studios are in Tigard, Oregon. The station is owned by iHeartMedia. For more than 70 years, the station at AM 620 was KGW, founded in 1922 by The Oregonian newspaper and owned and operated by it until 1953, when it was sold to King Broadcasting, it began broadcasting on March 25, 1922. KGW affiliated with the NBC network in 1927 and stayed for 29 years until joining ABC Radio in 1956; the station's studios and transmitter were located in the Oregonian Building from 1922 until 1943, when a fire destroyed them and the station moved to other quarters. Among KGW's early personalities was Mel Blanc, a local musician and vocalist featured on the "Hoot Owls" variety program from 1927 to 1933.

Here, Blanc discovered a talent for character voices that would win him stardom as the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and many other Warner Brothers cartoon features. Under The Oregonian the station gained an AM sister, KEX, in 1933, the Northwest's first FM station, KGW-FM, in 1946. King Broadcasting founded KGW-TV in 1956. All three stations continue to exist in Portland, but none have any remaining connection to AM 620. KGW would flip to Top 40 on January 9, 1959. "62 KGW", as it called itself during its years under those call letters, was one of the most popular radio stations in Portland in the 1960s and 1970s, but its ratings declined during the 1980s, despite a shift to adult contemporary music and on July 28, 1989, the station changed to a talk format, using local hosts. The change did not produce the hoped-for ratings turnaround, on July 26, 1991, the talk programming was replaced by a simulcast of sister station KINK-FM's programming, but retaining the longstanding and locally well-known call sign, KGW, until March 1, 1993, when the call letters were changed to KINK.

On February 6, 1995, KINK changed back to all-talk, now airing nationally syndicated talk radio programming instead of local talk, the call letters changed to KOTK. The frequent changing of call letters continued, with the station becoming KEWS in 1997, KDBZ in 2000, KTLK in 2002. On July 25, 2003, the station flipped to oldies, with the current KPOJ call letters adopted on August 18. For many years and with various formats, the station called itself "Super 62"; the KPOJ call sign originated at what is now KKPZ AM 1330, which for many years was the Mutual Broadcasting System's Portland affiliate. In the 1970s, that station changed its call letters to KUPL; the call letters stand for Portland Oregon Journal, the now-defunct newspaper that once owned AM 1330. On March 31, 2004, KPOJ flipped to progressive talk; the station was one of the first Air America affiliates, when the political talk network launched in that same month, running the standard Air America rotation of Marc Maron's "Morning Sedition" and other shows featuring Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy and others, serving as broadcast home for Thom Hartmann with Carl Wolfson and Christine Alexander doing a locally focused morning show for a time.

The progressive talk format was replaced by sports talk at 5:30 PM on November 9, 2012, three days after the 2012 general election. Fans of the progressive talk radio format started a campaign to "Save KPOJ", with thousands of listeners signing a petition to Clear Channel. In 2013, KPOJ became the flagship station of the Portland Trail Blazers, replacing sister station KEX; the station had aired some Blazers games during the 2012–13 season if there were conflicts with KEX's broadcasts of the Oregon State Beavers. On April 14, 2014, KPOJ rebranded as "Rip City Radio 620" Rip City Radio is a Fox Sports Radio affiliate, carrying The Rich Eisen Show from 9am-12pm Pacific as well as Jay Mohr Sports from 12pm-3pm Pacific. In March 2015 a local morning drive show was added, "Rip City Mornings" with Andy Bunker and Taylor Danforth. Travis Demers was brought in to host the afternoon drive show "The Rip City Drive" in October 2015. Dan Sheldon and Nigel Burton took over hosting the morning show on September 1, 2016.

Chad Doing was added to the afternoon show on March 20, 2017. On January 14, 2018, Rip City Radio announced a partnership with NBC Sports Northwest Comcast SportsNet Northwest; the lineup included a television simulcast of Rip City Mornings with Dan Sheldon and Nigel Burton from 6-9 AM Pacific time, the Rip City Drive with Travis Demers and Chad Doing 3-6 PM Pacific. A new mid-day show with Dwight Jaynes and Aaron Fentress was added from 12-3 PM. In July 2018, the Brian Noe Show replaced Aaron; the partnership included adding a radio simulcast to shows originated by NBC Sports Northwest including'Talkin Beavers','Talkin Ducks','The Bridge', and'Outdoor GPS'. KPOJ Website FCC History Cards for KGW Query the FCC's AM station database for KPOJ Radio-Locator Information on KPOJ Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for KPOJFCC History Cards for KPOJ