Even though Westfalen nowadays stands for the area of the former Prussian province Westfalen, the cultural and linguistic region, as it emerged in history, covers a much wider area.

Westfalen is dominated by the contrast between the lowlands of the Westfalen Bay in the north and the hill-lands in the south of the region with the Rothaargebirge and its highest summit, the Kahler Asten with 841.9 metres. Also important are the Teutoburg Forest, the Weser Upland and the Ardey Hills. Most important rivers are the Weser, along with the rivers Möhne, Lenne, Volme, Emscher, Sieg and Lippe, which discharge into the Rhine River. A huge number of well-known and important towns and cities like for instance Bochum, Dortmund, Hagen, Hamm, Gütersloh, Paderborn, Gelsenkirchen and Münster, to name only a few, demonstrate clearly that Westfalen is a highly urbanised region.

Even though Westfalen does not count as one of the classic holiday regions of Germany it still is home to a lot of important places for sightseeing, including a few Baroque buildings of European fame like the Clemenskirche, the Erbdrostenhof and the palace in Münster, or the Palace Nordkirchen and the Church of the Jesuits in Büren.

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