Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.

The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "elverfelde" was in a document of 1161.

In 1826 Friedrich Harkort, a famous German industrialist and politician, had a type of suspension railway built as a trial and ran it on the grounds of what is today the tax office at Elberfeld.

In fact the railway, the Schwebebahn Wuppertal, was eventually built between Oberbarmen and Vohwinkel and runs through Elberfeld.

In 1929 the towns of Barmen, Elberfeld, Vohwinkel, Cronenberg and Ronsdorf became a municipal entity officially called "Barmen-Elberfeld;" in the same year, the unified city administration through a vote of its council members decided to rename the newly incorporated city "Wuppertal."