Frankfurt Rhein-Main
Frankfurt Rhein-Main is one of Germany’s official metropolitan regions and one of the most dynamic and prosperous regions in Europe. It is a polycentric region with the City of Frankfurt at its core and 74 other towns and cities contributing to the region’s performance.
The Planungsverband Ballungsraum Frankfurt/Rhein-Main is Frankfurt Region's planning authority. The Planungsverband coordinates the interests of its 75 member communities for major issues, balancing these with regional planning concerns. Its main tasks are the creation of a Regional Land Use Plan and a Landscape Plan.
Although our region will mainly be associated with the banking (including the European Central Bank) and the finance industries as well as its international airport hub, there are other fields of excellence, e.g. high tech chemicals and material sciences companies, as well as automotive companies.
Many of the towns of cites in the peri-urban part of this region are the location of these services and industry. Although their names may be less known, or known by insiders, these are centres and not suburbs – think of Eschborn, the future seat of Frankfurt’s stock exchange, Rüsselsheim, where Opel cars are manufactured, or the elegant Bad Homburg, to name but a few.
An important asset of our region is its open space: different from other European metropolitan areas, open space is present also in the region’s core, forming a network of green infrastructure throughout the region. In Germany, farmland and forests are publicly accessible as long as you stay on the paths. This makes the open space an important resource for recreation and leisure.
Open space is protected legally here, but we feel this is not enough. We pro-actively promote and develop open space, for the benefit of our citizens, for example through the ambitious Regionalpark Rhein-Main project and the associated GrünGürtel (the Green Belt) in Frankfurt. In recent years we profited from transnational co-operation in this field, and we want to continue this exchange about peri-urban topics for the mutual benefit of our regions and their citizens.
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Frankfurt Rhein-Main Region - surprisingly green. |
Farming is of a certain importance because it dominates land use in the open space. There is, however, an untapped potential of providing short distance food supply or rural services aimed at urban needs. Good examples of local produce are asparagus, fruit and, just outside the regions’ core, wine. A Frankfurt special is the “Green Sauce”, made of 7 herbs traditionally grown on an inner city location.
Somewhat confusingly, there are various definitions of our region (see map). The Planungsverband’s territory is legally defined and forms the region’s core. Unfortunately, it cannot be described statistically in NUTS III terms as 3 NUTS III entities are included in parts only – you’d have to go to LAU II level. EU reports often refer to the larger Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt (NUTS II DE71), not to be confused with the city of that name (and therefore preferably called “Südhessen”). The “Metropolregion” as agreed nationally is much larger and aimed at representing the functional urban region.
General data:
| Country: |
Germany |
| Total area: |
200.000 ha |
| Population: |
2.000.000 |
| Density: |
1.000 ha/km2 |
| Agriculture land use: |
38.2 % |
| Arable land: |
79 % |
| Main economic activities: |
Financial services |
| Main agricultural products: |
Winter wheat; Sugar beets
Winter colza |
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Last updated: 6 May 2009