The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semester) is the district seat, and is ranked as a "higher centre" in the South Westphalian urban agglomeration.

Siegen's lowest point is 215 m (705 ft) above sea level at Niederschelden at southwestern city limits, which there also forms the state boundary with Rhineland-Palatinate.

Examples of these include the Unterstadt, the Oberstadt, Hammerhütte, Lindenberg, Charlottental, Haardter Berg (with the university) and the Alte Dreisbach.

They do, however, serve some function as to their inhabitants' identity, but more practically than that, they are also useful for finding one's way with a city map and using in bus route names and on public notices and traffic signs.

The communities of Weidenau, Geisweid, Birlenbach, Langenholdinghausen, Buchen, Sohlbach, Dillnhütten, Niedersetzen, Obersetzen and Meiswinkel formed from 1 July 1966 to 31 December 1974 the town of Hüttental.

The city's history is markedly shaped by mining, which locally began as far back as La Tène times.

In 1616, John VII founded a knightly war school in the still standing old armoury on Burgstraße, "expressly to produce an officer corps for Calvinism".

John VIII died in 1638 and was succeeded by his only son Johan Frans Desideratus, who had to cede part of Nassau-Siegen (north of the Sieg river) to the Protestant branch of the family.

After Napoleon's downfall in 1813, however, William I regained his former German inheritances, but in 1815 he ceded them to the Kingdom of Prussia for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

During World War II, Siegen was repeatedly bombed by the Allies owing to a crucial railroad that crossed through the town.

Subsequently, Siegen was a predominantly Protestant town, but not so strongly that the Counterreformation could not gain ground in 1623, with one fifth of the townsfolk and those living in the surrounding area becoming Catholic once again.

At the end of June 2005, according to the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for Data Processing and Statistics (Landesamt für Datenverarbeitung und Statistik Nordrhein-Westfalen), 105,328 people made Siegen their main abode.

¹ Census figure The current mayor of Siegen is Steffen Mues of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The mediaeval town charter was kept right up until 1809, and parts of it even held until 1815, but that year there was a self-endorsing council with 12 members, over which presided the mayor.

The inescutcheon once also had gold billets (upright rectangles) around the lion, but these do not appear in what became the town's (and later city's) coat of arms in 1875.

A kitchen from the Siegerland, a bedroom and many pieces of furniture from the Biedermeier era give one an impression of life in the region in bygone days.

In the southwest of the city core, at the foot of the Ziegenberg, is a spherical gas holder, or gasometer, which is protected by law as a monument.

Characteristic of regional cemeteries are hillside graves and a green, parklike layout that even affords wildlife a chance at reoccupying the land.

Cemeteries within city limits are: In the Apollo-Theater (a downtown former 1930s cinema that underwent remodelling and opened in mid-2007), Siegen has one of the current decade's most important newly built theatres.

The city and its surrounding region speak in addition to standard German also have a characteristic local dialect: Siegerländisch.

Early in the 1980s, the writer and cartoonist Matthias Kringe first published a calendar about the creature, written in the local dialect of German.

The Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen, founded in 1955, is awarded every five years to a painter or graphic artist whose life's work has been groundbreaking on the European stage.

The title recalls the painter-diplomat Peter Paul Rubens, who expressed in his life's work the thought of European unity, long before it could become a political reality.

Peter Paul Rubens – who was born in Siegen, grew up in Cologne and Antwerp, trained in art in Italy, was esteemed in France and acted as a diplomat in Spain and England – as the main master of European Baroque painting set those artistic and European standards to which the awarding of the prize has been bound since 1957–1958.

National importance was achieved in 2005 by the Sportfreunde Siegen men's football team at Leimbachstadion when they rose from the Regionalliga Süd up to the 2nd Bundesliga, although the next year they dropped back down again.

With regard to long-distance roads, the city of Siegen is connected to Autobahnen A 45 (Dortmund – Aschaffenburg) and A 4 (Cologne – Olpe), and to Federal Highways (Bundesstraßen) 54, 54n, 62 and 62n.

In Siegen, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) maintains a studio where regional radio and television news for South Westphalia is produced.

The daily broadcast goes out in the "South Westphalia" regional window following the programme Aktuelle Stunde (a newsmagazine show) on WDR's third channel.

In the early decades of the 17th century, the Herborn Academy temporarily relocated to Siegen, in the buildings of the Unteres Schloss, which came to an end when the Plague broke out.

*According to the city council of Siegen Adolf Hitler's honorary citizenship was lapsed by British military law.