Eschweiler

Eschweiler
Indestraße in Eschweiler
Coat of arms
Eschweiler
Location of Eschweiler within Aachen district
Coordinates: 50°49′N 6°17′E / 50.817°N 6.283°E / 50.817; 6.283Coordinates: 50°49′N 6°17′E / 50.817°N 6.283°E / 50.817; 6.283
Country	Germany
State	North Rhine-Westphalia
Admin. region	Cologne
District	Aachen
Government
• Mayor	Rudi Bertram (SPD)
Area
• Total	76.559 km2 (29.560 sq mi)
Elevation	110 - 262 m (−750 ft)
Population (2015-12-31)
• Total	55,909
• Density	730/km2 (1,900/sq mi)
Time zone	CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
Postal codes	52249
Dialling codes	02403
Vehicle registration	AC, MON
Website	www.eschweiler.de

Eschweiler (German pronun­cia­tion: [ˈɛʃvaɪlɐ]) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch frontier, and about 15 kilometres (9 mi) east of Aachen and 50 kilometres (31 mi) west of Cologne.

Eschweiler main sights include:

Also present is a series of castle and manors:

Eschweiler has three municipal halls (Dürwiß, Kinzweiler and Weisweiler), a cinema, a municipal art collection and the so-called Culture Centre Talbahnhof for cabaret and music events. Every summer the Eschweiler Music Festival EMF takes place. People go to the numerous pubs around the Market Place and in the old-town alley Schnellengasse as well as to the large-scale discothèque Klejbor's.

Eschweiler is a center of Rhineland carnival. It has more than 20 active carnival clubs, and every Monday before Lent it has the third of Germany's longest carnival processions.

Eschweiler is home to the St. Antonius Hospital with 443 beds and 13 departments. Every year, there are some 15,000 in-patients and 25,000 out-patients. The Euregio Breast Centre is part of the hospital.

Soccer, ice hockey, golf, open-air swimming pool, indoor swimming pool, horse sports, handball.

Chemical and metal industries, logistics and a lignite power plant.

The lignite (brown coal) deposits in the region are former Miocene swamp forest dominated by Castanopsis, a type of chinkapin. Such plants do not occur naturally in Europe. A type of fossil wood has been described from logs found in Eschweiler mines. It was named Castanoxylon eschweilerense in reference to the town; the name would translate as "Eschweiler chinkapin wood", as it probably belonged to Castanopsis but perhaps to some other genus of chinkapin.

Eschweiler has six railway stations: Eschweiler Hauptbahnhof (central station), Eschweiler-Aue (from 2009), Eschweiler-West, Eschweiler-Talbahnhof, Eschweiler-Nothberg, Eschweiler-Weisweiler and Nothberg (till 2009). Eschweiler-St. Jöris is planned.