Today, the Cranger Kirmes is a fair of superlatives: every year at the beginning of August, more than 500 exhibitors set up their rides, stalls and booths on an area of 111,000 square meters. Fairgoers who really want to see and experience everything have to cover a total of five kilometers of frontage - which is almost impossible to do in a single day.
And it's not just the number of attractions that make it worth coming back: The Cranger Kirmes also scores points with Europe's largest transportable wild water ride, a 50-meter-high Ferris wheel and many other rides, many of which celebrate their premiere here.
4 million visitors a year
So it's no wonder that around four million people flock to the Ruhr region every summer to be thrilled by the colorful funfair hustle and bustle in Herne. For ten whole days, it spreads out along the banks of the Rhine-Herne Canal.
As big and overwhelming as the Cranger Kirmes is today, it all started out small: Today's fair dates back to a horse market, which gradually developed into a funfair from the 15th century onwards. Since the Middle Ages, wild horses herded together from the Emscher quarry have been sold at the Cranger horse market.
Tradition: Horse market
The "Emscherbrücher Dickköpfe", as the horses were popularly known, were considered particularly tough and persistent by buyers and the horse market was accordingly popular and quickly grew into a spectacle.
Over time, the horse traders were joined by minstrels, dance groups, sleight-of-hand players, magicians, fortune tellers, showmen and fairground entertainers, who also entertained guests who did not want to buy a horse. The wild horses are now a thing of the past - the last horse from the Emscher quarry in Crange was sold a good 150 years ago.
Instead, the funfair enjoyed even greater popularity and with industrialization and mining, the population in the Ruhr area grew by leaps and bounds and with it the number of visitors to the Cranger Kirmes.
Largest funfair in NRW
Traditionally, a horse market still takes place at the start of the funfair. However, the focus of the funfair in Crange is on the wide range of rides. No other funfair has as many fairground rides and amusement rides as the largest funfair in North Rhine-Westphalia.
But the snack and almond stalls, the lottery and shooting stands and much more are also part of the Crange funfair and delight visitors of all ages every year.
