Antwerp is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at 208.22 km2 (80.39 sq mi), after Tournai and Couvin. With a population of 565,039, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million people, the country's second-largest metropolitan area after Brussels.

On the southern bank of the Waal River lies the city of Nijmegen, a major industrial center where brick manufacturing, the chemical industry, tobacco production, and electrical equipment manufacturing are especially well developed. One of the most curious constructions, shaped like a whale, is located on the Waal's riverbank — it’s the river fleet control center, as Nijmegen also serves as a river port. Nearby stands a sculpture of the fictional heroine Mariken van Nijmegen, who has become a symbolic figure for the city.

Nijmegen is also home to the fascinating National Bicycle Museum “Velorama.” Interestingly, it is the only museum of its kind in the Netherlands, despite the country’s well-known love of cycling. The museum’s exhibitions display the beauty and diversity of bicycle transport. Today, its collection includes over 500 bicycles.

Cologne is the largest city of Germany's most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and its 1 million+ (2016) inhabitants make it the fourth most populous city in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. The largest city on the Rhine, it is also the most populous city both of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, which is Germany's largest and one of Europe's major metropolitan areas, and of the Rhineland. Centred on the left bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about 45 kilometres (28 mi) southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia's capital of Düsseldorf and 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of Bonn. It is the largest city in the Central Franconian and Ripuarian dialect areas.

The city's famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne. There are many institutions of higher education in the city, most notably the University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln), one of Europe's oldest and largest universities, the Technical University of Cologne (Technische Hochschule Köln), Germany's largest university of applied sciences, and the German Sport University Cologne (Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln), Germany's only sport university. Cologne Bonn Airport (Flughafen Köln/Bonn) is Germany's seventh-largest airport and lies in the southeast of the city. The main airport for the Rhine-Ruhr region is Düsseldorf Airport.

Düsseldorf is the capital and second-largest city of the most populous German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, as well as the seventh-largest city in Germany. with a population of 617,280. At the confluence of the Rhine and its tributary Düssel, the city lies in the centre of both the Rhine-Ruhr and the Rhineland Metropolitan Regions with the Cologne Bonn region to its south and the Ruhr to its north. Most of the city lies on the right bank of the Rhine (as opposed to Cologne, whose city centre lies on the river's left bank). The city is the largest in the German Low Franconian dialect area (closely related to Dutch). "Dorf" meaning "village" in German, the "-dorf" suffix (English cognate: thorp) is unusual in the German-speaking area for a settlement of Düsseldorf's size.

 Antwerp is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at 208.22 km2 (80.39 sq mi), after Tournai and Couvin. With a population of 565,039, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million people, the country's second-largest metropolitan area after Brussels.