City guide · Amsterdam

Amsterdam

From a dam on the Amstel to a Golden Age city of canals

Photo: Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0

Amsterdam began with a dam on the Amstel. The 17th-century canal ring, Rembrandt in the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht link the city's Golden Age with its memories of the Second World War.

History

How the city came to be

The city began with a dam on the Amstel, and land reclamation in the area started in the late 10th century. The All Saints' Flood of 1170 turned the IJ into a wide inlet, opening a waterway to the Zuiderzee. The Bishop of Utrecht granted it city rights in 1300 or 1306, and from the 14th century it prospered on trade with the Hanseatic League. The 17th century was Amsterdam's Golden Age, when it became the richest city in the Western world: in 1602 the Dutch East India Company began trading its own shares here, creating the world's first stock exchange, and in the same period the concentric canal ring was planned and dug. Amsterdam also took part in the Atlantic slave trade. On 10 May 1940 Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands; more than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported and murdered, and Anne Frank's family was arrested in their hiding place in 1944. In 2010 the 17th-century canal ring became a World Heritage Site.

1170The All Saints' Flood turned the IJ into a sea inlet
1300 or 1306Received city rights
1602Trading in East India Company shares created the world's first stock exchange
17th centuryGolden Age; the canal ring was planned and dug
1885The current main building of the Rijksmuseum opened
1940–1945German occupation; more than 100,000 Dutch Jews were murdered
2010The 17th-century canal ring became a World Heritage Site

Stories

Stories of the city

Two years behind a bookcase

History · Anne Frank House

On the morning of 6 July 1942 the Frank family moved into the secret annexe at the back of the building that housed Otto Frank's company, its entrance hidden behind a bookcase; several of Otto's most trusted employees became their helpers. On 4 August 1944 the hiding place was discovered and the whole family was arrested by the Gestapo. Anne and her sister Margot died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early 1945; their father Otto survived Auschwitz. He published his daughter's diary in 1947, and in 1960 the house opened as a museum.

The Night Watch is not actually a night scene

History · Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt's huge painting, completed in 1642, is officially called 'Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq'. For a long time it was covered in dark varnish, making people think it showed a night scene — hence the name 'The Night Watch'. When it was moved into Amsterdam's town hall in 1715, it was trimmed on all four sides to fit the wall, and the cut pieces have never been found; in 2021 the Rijksmuseum used artificial intelligence to reconstruct the missing parts from an early copy, displaying them for three months.