Electromagnetic meson production in the nucleon resonance region

Recent experimental and theoretical advances in investigating electromagnetic meson production reactions in the nucleon resonance region are reviewed. We give a description of current experimental facilities with electron and photon beams and present a unified derivation of most of the phenomenological approaches being used to extract the resonance parameters from the data. The analyses of π and η production data and the resulting transition form factors for the Δ(1232)P33, N(1535)S11, N(1440)P11, and N(1520)D13 resonances are discussed in detail. The status of our understanding of the reactions with production of two pions, kaons, and vector mesons is also reviewed. (author)