Host city football world cup,
GelsenkirchenGelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern p
art of the Ruhr area. Its po
pulation as of 31 December 2002 was 274,926.
Gelsenkirchen was first documented in 1150, but it remained a tiny village until the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution led to the growth of the entire area. In 1840, when the mining of coal began, 6000 inhabitants lived in Gelsenkirchen; in 1900 the population had increased to 138,000.
In the early 20th century Gelsenkirchen was the most important coalmining town in Europe. It was called the "city of a thousand fires", for all its smoking stacks. In 1928 Gelsenkirchen was merged with the adjoining cities of Buer and Horst. The city b
ore the name Gelsenkirchen-Buer, until it was renamed Gelsenkirchen in 1930. During the Nazi era Gelsenkirchen remained a centre of coal production and oil refining, and for this reason it was bombed by Allied air raids in World War II. Today in Gelsenkirchen there are no collieries any more and Gelsenkirchen is searching for a new image, having been hit for decades with one of the highest unemployment rates of Germany. Today Germany's largest solar power plant is located in the city. In Gelsenkirchen-Scholven there is a coal fired power station with the tallest chimneys in Germany (302 metres).


Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslauter
n is a city in the south of the Land Rhineland-Palatinate in GermanyThe town hall (Rathaus) is the tallest modern building in the city-center of Kaiserslautern, and the bar and coffe-shop on the top floor features good views of the town and surrounding countryside. The tallest building in the center of Kaiserslautern is actually Marienkirche, a catholic church.
The television tower, in fact the highest building in Kaiserslautern is not in the citycenter, but located at Dansenberg, a ward in the southwest of the city. 
In the town itself, there are some ruins of a 12th-century castle of the emperor Barbarossa.
Kaiserslautern's large botanic gardens feature a Japanese-style garden. Another unusual feature is the Waschmühle, an enormous 160-metre public swimming pool, the largest in Europe, you can see it from space. The pedestrianized streets near St-Martins-Platz contain many restaurants and bars and is a major focus of the town's nightlife.The castle "Kaiserpfalz" was built in 1152 Kaiserslautern offers a wide range of cultural activities. Theatregoers have the chance to see plays, operas, ballets, concerts or musical at the local theatre which employs more than 300 people and plays a notable role in the German theatre scene. The first German performance of Westside Story took place there. As theatres in Germany profit from staten subsidies, ticket prices are rather low. Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern hosts the most important award for Germanwriting drama authors, Else-Lasker-Schüler-Preis, which in 2003 was awarded to Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.
Another place for music, comedy and plays is called "Kulturzentrum Kammgarn", another subsidised stage and club in the city, that regulary hosts German and international stars ( for example "Earth, Wind and Fire","Midge Ure", "Jan Garbarek", "Peter Gabriel" ), who like to play in a club-atmosphere. Kammgarn hosts a very popular annual jazz-festival. "Kulturzentrum Kammgarn" is located in an old cotton factory, this is why the club of "Kulturzentrum Kammgarn" is called "The Cotton Club".