Herne is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area directly between the cities of Bochum and Gelsenkirchen.HistoryLike most other cities in the region Herne was a tiny village until the 19th century. When the mining of coal and the production of steel began, the villages of the Ruhr area became cities.Present-day Herne includes the former settlements of Herne, Wanne and Eickel. Farms bearing these names were founded in the 11th and 12th centuries. In 1860 the first coal mine started operation. In the following thirty years the population increased twentyfold. For the first time Herne was called a city. The same process took place in Wanne and Eickel, which merged in 1926 to form the new city of Wanne-Eickel. In 1975 Wanne-Eickel, by then a city with over 70,000 inhabitants, was incorporated into Herne.World War IIHerne was targeted by the RAF on 4 June 1940, early in World War II. Three high-explosive bombs were dropped and one house was damaged.In Wanne-Eickel, the Krupp Treibstoffwerke oil refinery near the local Shamrock 3/4 coal mine was bombed during the Oil Campaign of World War II.Gallery<gallery> File:Herne, kerk in straatzicht foto3 2010-08-07 17.07.JPG|Herne, church File:Baukau, Schloss Strünkede foto6 2012-03-28 10.27.JPG|Baukau, castle: Schloss Strünkede File:Baukau, Schlosskapelle Strünkede foto1 2012-03-28 10.32.JPG|Baukau, chapel: Schlosskapelle Strünkede </gallery>