Bielefeld

Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 342,952, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region () of Detmold and the 18th largest city in Germany.

The historical centre of the city is situated in the Ravensberg Basin north of the Teutoburg Forest hill range, but modern Bielefeld extends across the range and further south into the flat Westphalian Basin. The city is situated on the Hermannsweg, a hiking trail that runs for 156 km along the ridges of the Teutoburg Forest.

Bielefeld is home to a significant number of internationally operating companies, including Dr. Oetker, DMG Mori (former Gildemeister), Möller Group, Goldbeck and Schüco. It has a university and several technical colleges (). Bielefeld is also known for the Bethel Foundation.

History

Founded in 1214 by Count Hermann IV of Ravensberg to guard a pass crossing the Teutoburg Forest, Bielefeld was the "city of linen" as a minor member of the Hanseatic League, known for bleachfields into the 19th century.Hamburgh Mail, The Times 14 December 1816 The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 turned Ravensberg, from 1719 Minden-Ravensberg, into a part of Brandenburg–Prussia. When Prussia lost its western territories to French control in 1807, Bielefeld became part of the Kingdom of Westphalia.The Times, 9 November 1809; Letters to the Editor In 1813 the region reverted back to the Kingdom of Prussia, and following the defeat of France and the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Bielefeld was incorporated into the newly formed Province of Westphalia.The Times, 26 August 1815; News

After the Cologne-Minden railway opened in 1849, the Bozi brothers constructed the first large mechanised spinning mill in 1851. The Ravensberg Spinning Mill was built from 1854 to 1857, and metal works began to open in the 1860s.

Founded in 1867 as a Bielefeld sewing machine repair company, Dürkoppwerke AG employed 1,665 people in 1892; it used Waffenamt code "WaA547" from 1938 to 1939 as the Dürkopp-Werke, and merged with other Bielefeld companies to form Dürkopp Adler AG in 1990.

Between 1904 and 1930, Bielefeld grew, opening a rebuilt railway station, a municipal theatre, and finally, the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle concert hall, renowned for its excellent acoustics. The Dürkopp car was produced from 1898 to 1927. After printing emergency money () in 1923 during the inflation in the Weimar Republic, Bielefeld was one of several towns that printed very attractive and highly collectable banknotes with designs on silk, linen and velvet. These pieces were issued by the Bielefeld Stadtsparkasse (town's savings bank) and were sent all around the world in the early 1920s. These pieces are known as Stoffgeld – that is, money made from fabric.Many examples can be found on the website, where a new catalogue listing all the variants of different coloured borders and edges made on the 100m piece is being compiled.

The town's synagogue was burned in 1938 during the Kristallnacht pogrom carried out against Jewish population. In 1944, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the USAAF bombed the gas works at Bielefeld on 20 September and the marshaling yard on 30 September;September 1944 Bielefeld was bombed again on 7 OctoberMcKillop, October 1944 and the RAF bombed the town on the night of 4/5 December. On 17 January 1945, B-17s bombed the nearby Paderborn marshalling yard, and the railway viaduct in the suburb of Schildesche.McKillop, January 1945 On 14 March the RAF bombed the viaduct again, wrecking it. This was the first use of the RAF's 10 tonne Grand Slam bomb. American troops entered the city in April 1945.

Due to the presence of a number of barracks built during the 1930s and its location next to the main East-West Autobahn in northern Germany, after World War II Bielefeld became a headquarters town for the fighting command of the British Army of the Rhine – BAOR (the administrative and strategic headquarters were at Rheindahlen near the Dutch border). Until the 1980s there was a large British presence in the barracks housing the headquarters of the British First Corps and support units, as well as schools, NAAFI shops, officers' and sergeants' messes and several estates of married quarters. The British presence was heavily scaled back after the reunification of Germany and most of the infrastructure has disappeared, with the final departure in 2020.

As a part of larger municipal reforms in North Rhine-Westphalia, the city of Bielefeld was merged with the surrounding district of Bielefeld to form the “district-free city” of Bielefeld on 1 January 1973.German Wikipedia: Bielefeld-Gesetz This created the administrative structures and borders that the city has to this day. For the first time, Bielefeld was extended to the south side of the Teutoburg Forest. The city’s population rose from 167,000 to 320,000 and its area increased more than five-fold, from 48 to 259 km².

Starting in 1994, the city has been the subject of the humorous Bielefeld conspiracy, which satirises conspiracy theories by claiming that the city does not exist.

Subdivisions Bielefeld is subdivided into the following ten (10) districts:

Bielefeld-Mitte (central district) Brackwede Dornberg Gadderbaum Heepen Jöllenbeck Schildesche Senne Sennestadt Stieghorst

Climate

Bielefeld has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb; Trewartha: Dobk). The average annual high temperature is , the annual low temperature is , and the annual precipitation is .

The Alzey weather station has recorded the following extreme values: Its highest temperature was on 25 July 2019. Its lowest temperature was on 13 February 2021. Its greatest annual precipitation was in 2023. Its least annual precipitation was in 2018. The longest annual sunshine was 1,918.3 hours in 2022. The shortest annual sunshine was 1,418.4 hours in 2013.

Industry and education Bielefeld was a linen-producing town, and in the early 1920s the Town's Savings Bank (Stadtsparkasse) issued money made of linen, silk and velvet. These items were known as 'stoffgeld'.

In addition to the manufacture of home appliances and various heavy industries, Bielefeld companies include Dr. Oetker (food manufacturing), Möller Group (leather products and plastics), Seidensticker (clothing and textiles) and Bethel Institution with 17.000 employees.

Bielefeld University was founded in 1969. The first professors included the well-known German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Other institutions of higher education include the Theological Seminary Bethel (Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel) and the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences (), which offers 21 courses in 8 different departments (agriculture and engineering are in Minden) and has been internationally recognized for its photography school. Bielefeld has several vocational schools like Berufskolleg Senne. and Berufskolleg Bethel. These schools focus on hands-on training in various fields, including business, healthcare, and technical disciplines.

Demographics

+ Largest groups of foreign residents (excluding persons with dual citizenship)Nationality Population (August 2025)Turkey 11,096Iraq 6,196Ukraine 5,410Syria 4,113Greece 3,766Poland 3,461

Politics Mayor The current mayor (Oberbürgermeister) of Bielefeld is Christiana Bauer of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who was elected in 2025.

The most recent mayoral election was held on 14 September 2025, with a runoff held on 28 September, and the results were as follows:

City council The Bielefeld city council governs the city alongside the mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 14 September 2025. The SPD and the CDU formed a coalition with 40 of the 78 seats in the council. The full results were as follows:

! colspan=2| Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | 41,977 | 29.4 | 1.6 | 23 | 5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 31,063 | 21.7 | 3.2 | 17 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | 21,488 | 15.0 | 7.3 | 12 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 17,370 | 12.2 | 8.7 | 10 | 8 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | 15,023 | 10.5 | 4.4 | 8 | 4 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 6,813 | 4.8 | 2.3 | 4 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Die PARTEI (PARTEI) | 2,325 | 1.6 | 1.3 | 1 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) | 1,768 | 1.2 | New | 1 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Volt (Volt) | 1,759 | 1.2 | New | 1 | New |- | bgcolor=#228F97| | align=left| Local Democracy in Bielefeld (LiB) | 1,582 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 1 | ±0 |- | colspan=7 bgcolor=lightgrey| |- | bgcolor=#ED8045| | align=left| Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG) | 945 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0 | 1 |- | bgcolor=#FF8C00| | align=left| Close to the Citizens (Bürgernähe) | 735 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0 | 1 |- | bgcolor=#646464| | align=left| Lobbyists for Children (LfK) | 72 | 0.1 | New | 0 | New |- ! colspan=2| Valid votes ! 142,920 ! 99.5 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Invalid votes ! 784 ! 0.6 ! ! ! |- ! colspan=2| Total ! 143,704 ! 100.0 ! ! 78 ! 12 |- ! colspan=2| Electorate/voter turnout ! 250,486 ! 57.4 ! 3.8 ! ! |- | colspan=7| Source: City of Bielefeld

Transport Two major autobahns, the A 2 and A 33, intersect in the south east of Bielefeld. The Ostwestfalendamm expressway connects the two parts of the city, naturally divided by the Teutoburg Forest. Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof, the main railway station of Bielefeld, is on the Hamm–Minden railway and is part of the German ICE high-speed railroad system. The main station for intercity bus services is Brackwede station.

Bielefeld has a small airstrip, Flugplatz Bielefeld, in the Senne district but is mainly served by the three larger airports nearby, Paderborn Lippstadt Airport, Münster Osnabrück Airport and Hannover Airport.

Bielefeld boasts a well-developed public transport system, served mainly by the companies moBiel (formerly Stadtwerke Bielefeld – Verkehrsbetriebe) and "BVO". The Bielefeld Stadtbahn has four major lines and regional trains connect different parts of the city with nearby counties. Buses also run throughout the area.

Main sights

Sparrenburg Castle is Bielefeld's characteristic landmark. It was built between 1240 and 1250 by Count Ludwig von Ravensberg. The tower and the catacombs of the castle are open to the public.

Bielefeld

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