It is important as the centre of the flourishing cotton-spinning and weaving industries of the Twente district; while by the railway via Gronau and Koesfeld to Dortmund it is in direct communication with the Westphalian coalfields.
Cologne and the Westphalian towns, the most important of which were Dortmund, Soest and Munster, had long controlled this commerce but now began to feel the competition of the active traders of the Baltic, opening up that direct communication by sea from the Baltic to western Europe which became the essential feature in the history of the League.
According to the "Skra," the by-laws of the Novgorod branch, the four aldermen of the community of Germans, who among other duties held the keys of the common chest, deposited in Wisby, were to be chosen from the merchants of the Gothland association and of the towns of Lubeck, Soest and Dortmund.
A tramway connects the town with Dortmund.
Iron and steel goods are produced in the so-called "Enneper Strasse," the valley of the Ennepe, a small tributary of the Ruhr with the town of Hagen, and in the neighbouring towns of Bochum, Dortmund, Iserlohn and Altena, and also in the Siegen district.