Schwelm

Schwelm is a town in the Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis district, in the Arnsberg administrative region of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. It lies in the southeast of the Ruhr district between Westphalia and the Bergisches Land, beside Ennepetal, Gevelsberg, Sprockhovel and Wuppertal, and it is known as the Gate to Westphalia. By area it is the smallest town in North Rhine-Westphalia, and it describes itself as a town of neighbourhoods, of which it has thirteen. The name is first recorded in the ninth century as Suelmiu, the town was officially established in 1496, and in 1929 it became the seat of the Ennepe-Ruhr district. Its historic centre keeps eighteenth-century houses around the Altmarkt and the Christuskirche, and it is home to the Ibach piano works, which has built pianos there since 1794. Gustav Heinemann, third president of the Federal Republic of Germany, was born there.