DUISBURG, a town of Prussia, at the head of a circle in the government of Düsseldorf, situated at an important railway junction in the country between the Rhine and the Ruhr, and communicating with both rivers by a canal. It has a fine Gothic church— Salvatorkirche —of the 15th century, a. gymnasium, and an orphan asylum, and is also the seat of a great Protestant Diakonenanstalt, or Deacon’s Institute, foundod in 1844 by Engelbert, and forming the centre of a large organization for philanthropic action. Its importance, however, is mainly due to the great development of its industry, which deals on an extensive scale with various branches of engineering and the iron manufacture, as well as with cotton—both yam and cloth—tobacco, sugar, and a number of chemical stuffs, such as alum, soda, and Prussian blue. Probably known to the Romans as Castrum Deutonis, and mentioned under the Frankish kings as Dispargum, Duisburg early attained the rank of an imperial free town, passed in 1290 to Cleves, and afterwards to Brandenburg, and from 1655 to 1818 was the seat of a university, transferred in the latter year to Düsseldorf. Population in 1871, 30,533.