In 1994, UNESCO designated Völklingen Ironworks a world heritage site. It is the world's only ironworks surviving from the heyday of the iron and steel industry and is a remarkable example of the industrial heritage and technological history of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Gigantic buildings from the iron and steel industry
Established by Julius Buch in 1873, Völklingen Ironworks was Germany's biggest iron-smelting works for more than 100 years 4,000 workers used to produce more than five tonnes of pig iron here every day. The huge industrial site was full of noise, fire and acrid fumes. But world steel crisis of the 1970s signalled the beginning of its demise and in 1986 the final blast furnace was extinguished for the last time - it was the end of an era. Today, visitors can see this once "forbidden city" from viewing walkways. Guided tours cover both the technical aspects of iron production and the lives of thousands of steel workers in this closed world.

Today Völklingen Ironworks, which covers an area of 600,000m², is a thrilling theme and adventure park amid gigantic buildings. Its six huge blast furnaces, 6,000m² blasting hall with colossal machines and a unique sloping lift are regarded as some of the finest feats of engineering from the early 20th century. The 30-metre high charging platform, where coke and iron ore were poured into the blast furnaces, is now a gigantic viewing platform, surpassed in height only by the gallery of the hot-blast stoves at 45 metres - a spine-tingling experience. A multimedia introduction takes visitors from the origins of Völklingen Ironworks to the present day.
» www.voelklinger-huette.org

A selection of other coal and steel industry museums in Germany.