https://www.scmp.com/rss/328224/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com For much of the 20th century, the city of Duisburg in Germany’s industrial west was a steel-and-coal town whose chimneys cloaked the skies in smoke. And yet there is something about this soot-stained spot in the Ruhr valley that seems to encourage a particularly clear-sighted view of the rest of the world. In 1585, it was in Duisburg that Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator published a book of maps of European countries – the first ever “atlas” to carry that name. And it was here that... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2158959/germanys-china-city-how-duisburg-became-xi?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2158959/germanys-china-city-how-duisburg-became-xi?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Aug 2018 11:18:50 +0000