The main industries in Emden are automobile production and shipbuilding. Volkswagen runs a large factory building the VW Passat car, where around 10,000 people are employed. Also, Emden is one of the three main ports for car transportation in Europe (together with Zeebrugge in Belgium and Bremerhaven in Germany). In 2005, more than 850,000 cars were imported and exported. The Nordseewerke shipyard, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp, employs around 1,400 dockers and is specialized in conventional submarines. Furthermore, it produces different kinds of cargo ships as well as ships for special purposes such as icebreakers, dredgers and the like.
Another important economic factor is touristics, mainly as a day trip target for the tourists in the surrounding villages on the North Sea coastline.
In 1973, a university of applied sciences (Fachhochschule) was opened. At present, around 3500 students are enrolled, most of them in technical degrees.
EconomyThe highest playing soccer club is BSV Kickers Emden in the Third German League (Northern Division, Regionalliga Nord). The club was founded by Gustav Pluennecke & friends. The capacity of the stadium is 7,200, due to safety objections of the German Soccer Association. In 1994, some 12,000 spectators followed a match against the second team of Hamburger SV, which still is the record. In that season, Kickers Emden became the champion of the 3rd League, but failed to be promoted to the Second League since the team lost a special tournament held for this purpose.
Since Emden is not only located close to the North Sea, but also to the river Ems and various small rivers and canals, boat sports is very popular among the inhabitants and tourists.
Famous people from Emden
Two German light cruisers were named after the city, one in World War I (SMS Emden), and another built after the war, Emden'. Nowadays, the fifth Navy ship named after the city is in service.
During her commerce raiding in the Indian Ocean in early World War I, SMS Emden sailed into the Bay of Bengal on India's eastern coast and fired two cannon shots at Fort St. George located on the sea front of Chennai (formerly Madras); there were no casualties. The ship then sailed down the east coast of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). A Boer wildlife official, H.H. Engelbrecht, was jailed after being falsely accused of having supplied meat to the cruiser [1]. SMS Emden also sank a Russian cruiser in Penang harbour in Malaya. On November 9, 1914, during a raid on the Cocos Islands to destroy a British telegraph station, Emden was trapped and destroyed by the HMAS Sydney.
Nowadays, the fifth Emden ship is in service. The frigate of the German Navy was built in 1980, and started its service in 1983. It was the first of those five ships named after the city which was also built there (at Nordseewerke shipyards).
To this day in some parts of south India, a particularly daring and capable person is referred to in the vernacular as "Emden". In Sri Lanka, "Emden" is the bogeyman with which mothers scare their children and is used to refer to a particularly obnoxious person.
The leader of Sri Lanka's United National Party, Ranil Wickremasinghe, is nicknamed "Emden" after a puppet of him bore that name in a Television series, Always Breakdown.
A deep sea spot in the Pacific Ocean close to the Philippines is named after the "second" Emden ship, and is therefore called Emdentief in German. The spot (10,400 m deep) was sounded in the 1920s (in 1920, 1923 or 1928 - sources vary).
