Note: The German town of Neunkirchen is located on the Blies river, some 12 miles northeast of Saarbrücken. Its economy is driven by iron founding and coal mining. As an important producer of iron and coal, it was heavily bombed in World War II, but has since been rebuilt. It was the birthplace of Erick Honecker in 1912, the secretary of the East German Communist Party from 1971 to 1989. Its calculated population for 2005 was 50,432.