The city lies on the low rolling hills of Bochum land ridge (Bochumer Landrücken), part of the Ruhrhöhen (highest elevations) between the Ruhr and Emscher rivers at the border of the southern and northern Ruhr coal region.

Steeper graduation can be found at the Harpener Hellweg near the Berghofer Holz nature reserve (3.4%), at Westenfelder Straße in the borough of Wattenscheid (3.47%), or at Kemnader Straße, which begins at the banks of the Ruhr in Stiepel (71 m, 233 ft), and rises to its highest point in the centre of Stiepel (196 m, 643 ft, a 5.1% increase).

It is surrounded by the cities of (in clockwise direction) Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten, Hattingen, Essen and Gelsenkirchen.

The industrial developments in the region since the 19th century were leading to a kind of division of labour between the two river catchments, pumping drinking water from the Ruhr into the municipal supply system and discharging waste water mainly into the Emscher system.

844 species of plants can be found within the city limts[10] Bochum features an Oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb; Trewartha: Dobk) characterized by cool winters and short warm summers.

The total precipitation of 815mm[11] is distributed relatively evenly through most of the year but has a peak in winter and two minima in late spring and July, respectively.

[11] June shows a second peak in precipitation due to the return of the westerlies which leads to more thunderstorms being generated along frontal boundaries of Atlantic low-pressure systems.

Bochum is divided into six administrative sections (stadtbezirke), alongside their respective sub-districts (stadtteile), with a total of 362,213 inhabitants living in an urban area of 145.4 km2 (56.1 sq mi).

The current mayor of Bochum is Thomas Eiskirch of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who was elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2020.

The most recent city council election was held on 13 September 2020, and the results were as follows: Bochum dates from the 9th century, when Charlemagne set up a royal court at the junction of two important trade routes.

In 1321, Count Engelbert II von der Marck granted Bochum a town charter, but the town remained insignificant until the 19th century, when the coal mining and steel industries emerged in the Ruhr area, leading to the growth of the entire region.

[17] The Poles were subjected to anti-Polish policies aimed at Germanisation, and the Central Office for Monitoring the Polish Movement in the Rhine-Westphalian Industrial District (Zentralstelle fur Uberwachung der Polenbewegung im Rheinisch-Westfalischen Industriebezirke) was established by the German authorities in Bochum in 1909.

The first Jews from Bochum were deported to Nazi concentration camps[citation needed] and many Jewish institutions and homes were destroyed.

Many Jewish children and those from other persecuted groups were taken in by Dutch families and thereby saved from abduction or deportation and death.

[21] During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the Nazis carried out mass arrests of local Polish activists, who were then sent to concentration camps.

[17] During the war, Germany operated a prison in the city with three forced labour subcamps within present-day city limits,[22] an additional detention center,[23] a camp for Romani people in the present-day Wattenscheid district,[24] and three subcamps of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

[26] Because the Ruhr region was an area of high residential density and a centre for the manufacture of weapons, it was a major target in the war.

On 4 November 1944, in an attack involving 700 British bombers, the steel plant, Bochumer Verein, was hit.

One of the largest steel plants in Germany,[30] more than 10,000 high-explosive and 130,000 incendiary bombs were stored there, setting off a conflagration that destroyed the surrounding neighbourhoods.

One found in October 2008 in Bochum town centre led to the evacuation of 400 and involved hundreds of emergency workers.

[41] After the war, Bochum was part of West Germany and the newly established state of North Rhine-Westphalia, consisting of the Rhineland and Westphalia.

[67] The Bermudadreieck (Bermuda Triangle), in the city center of Bochum, functions as the town's nightlife hub.

Around sixty different bars and restaurants are located there, serving multicultural cuisine such as Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Spanish and German gastronomic specialties.

In one of the venues, the Audimax of the Ruhr University Bochum, there is also one of the most modern organs from the Klais Orgelbau with 82 registers.

In this informal setting, music fans have the opportunity not only to “sit in the front row”, but also to come into direct contact with the artists.

The initiators, Dr. Reinhard Cebulla and his wife Anna, received the Badge of Honor from the city of Bochum in 2013 and the Wattenscheid St. Gertrudis Prize in 2014.

Until 2012, a new interchange (Dreieck Bochum-West) between the Donezk-Ring and Autobahn A40 is being constructed within tight parameters due to the existence of a nearby factory.

Local service is supplied mainly by BOGESTRA, a joint venture handling transportation between the cities of Bochum and Gelsenkirchen.

As one of the few Ruhr area cities, Bochum is not directly connected with the German waterway net; the closest link is in the more northern located Herne at the Rhine-Herne Canal.

There is also a long section of dual carriageway on the south-western edge of Sheffield, between the suburbs of Meadowhead and Gleadless, named Bochum Parkway.