Mettmann () is a town in the northern part of the Bergisches Land, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Mettmann, Germany's most densely populated rural district. The town lies east of Düsseldorf and west of Wuppertal. History Located on the ancient trade route "strata coloniensis" the Lotharingian hamlet of Medamana (engl. between the streams, which bears an etymological similarity to the origins of the name for the Northern Italian city of Milan (lat. Mediolanum)) first appeared in the charter of the last Carolingian King, Louis the Child, 904 AD, thus existing "officially" for more than 1100 years. In 1363 Mettmann was one of eight administrative burghs in the Earldom of Berg and Jülich. Later the burgh became independent at the hand of Counsellor to the Earl of Cleves and was allowed to build a wall and choose a mayor. The ability to toll and tax allowed the burgh to develop in commerce and trade. In 1806 Mettmann became a part of the Grand Duchy of Berg under the rule of Napoleon's brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. During this time, Mettmann's burgomaster was called "Monsieur le Maire." Mettmann remained French for about 10 years and became a part of Prussia's Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg following Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. As the result of the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), in 1822 it was adsorbed into the Prussian Rhine Province. However, the Prussian rulers did not prove to be very popular, as during the bread-riots of 1848–49 and the ensuing political upheavals, which hit the district of Düsseldorf among the hardest, policing was done from Berlin, excluding local accountability. Thus, the Prussian government regarded the Rhinelands as more of a colony, furnishing the bureaucracy, which was based in Düsseldorf, with civil servants that were drafted in from other regions of Prussia. Mettmann was liberated from the National Socialist Dictatorship April 16, 1945, by a vanguard of the US Ninth Army and then became a part of the British military administration under which the Northern Rhineland was redemocratised. Since 1946, Mettmann is a part of the Land North Rhine-Westphalia and from 1949 of West Germany. Since 1990 it belongs to the unified Federal Republic of Germany. Demographics In the years following Germany's loss of World War II in 1945, Mettmann saw significant population increases driven mostly by the resettlement of citizens previously living in the