Leverkusen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the South, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne and to the North is the state capital Düsseldorf.With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is one of the state's smaller cities. The city is known for the pharmaceutical company Bayer and its associated sports club TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen.HistoryDating back to the 12th century as Wiesdorf, the Leverkusen area was rural until the late 19th century.Leverkusen was founded in 1930 by merging Wiesdorf, Schlebusch, Steinbüchel and Rheindorf. The city was posthumously named after the chemist and entrepreneur Carl Leverkus. In 1861, Leverkus set up a factory for the production of artificial ultramarine blue at the Kahlberg in Wiesdorf, and called the emerging settlement "Leverkusen" after his family home in Lennep.In 1975, Opladen (including Quettingen and Lützenkirchen since 1930), Hitdorf and Bergisch Neukirchen joined Leverkusen. The present city is made up of several villages, originally called Wiesdorf, Opladen, Schlebusch, Manfort, Bürrig, Hitdorf, Quettingen, Lützenkirchen, Steinbüchel, Rheindorf and Bergisch-Neukirchen.