Construction on Dortmund's port which terminates the Dortmund-Ems Canal

Dortmund-Ems Canal

The Dortmund–Ems Canal is a 269 km long canal in Germany between the inland port of the city of Dortmund and the sea port of Emden. The artificial southern part of the canal ends after 215 km at the lock of Herbrum near Meppen. From there, the route goes over a length of 45 km over...

 connecting Dortmund

Dortmund

Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

 to the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 started in 1895. It was opened 1899 by Kaiser Wilhelm. At the beginning of the 20th century it was mainly used for the import and export of wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

, coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 and ore. The port

Port

A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

 was expanded in the 1920s and 1930s by adding new docks

Dock (maritime)

A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...

 as well as on the administrative infrastructure (Dortmunder Hafenamt). Today Dortmund Port is the biggest European canal port with 10 docks and a pier length of 11 km.

Gaining its greatest importance after WW II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, in 1972 6.2 million tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s of good were shipped over the port. But even the completion of the container port in 1987 could not stop the gradual decline of the port resulting from the extinction of the coal and steel industries in Dortmund.
2.96 million tons of freight were shipped over the Dortmund Port in 2007, an increase of 7.1 percent compared to the previous year.

Shipment by goods(2006)

good	tonnage
Building material Building material Building material is any material which is used for a construction purpose. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, sand, wood and rocks, even twigs and leaves have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man-made products are in use, some more... s	934,000 t
Mineral oil Mineral oil A mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of alkanes in the C15 to C40 range from a non-vegetable source, particularly a distillate of petroleum....	647,000 t
Container Containerization Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...	523,000 t
Iron and steel products	334,000 t
Scrap Scrap Scrap is a term used to describe recyclable and other materials left over from every manner of product consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has significant monetary value...  and recyclable waste	216,000 t
Coal Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...  and coke Coke (fuel) Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...	272,000 t
Others	34,000 t

In the process of restructuring the industry in the Ruhrgebiet

Ruhr Area

The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...

and in Dortmund, local politics are looking for new ways to use the old port. Planned projects are the construction of a marina

Marina

A marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats.A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo from freighters....

and high-quality area for recreational use and living close to the water.

In 2005 a first location for recreational use was established.