title
stringlengths 1
251
| section
stringlengths 0
6.12k
| text
stringlengths 0
716k
|
|---|---|---|
Aegean Sea | Ancient Greece | Ancient Greece
200px|thumb|upright=1.25|A fleet of Athenian trireme
200px|thumb|upright=1.25|Library of Celsus, a Roman structure in important sea port Ephesus
The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages in the 8th century BC. Greece became divided into small self-governing communities, and adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, of which Athens, Sparta, and Corinth were closest to the Aegean Sea. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC many Greeks migrated to form colonies in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The Aegean Sea was the setting for one of the most pivotal naval engagements in history, when, on 20 September 480 B.C., the Athenian fleet gained a decisive victory over the Persian fleet of the Xerxes II of Persia at the Battle of Salamis. Thus ending any further attempt of western expansion by the Achaemenid Empire.
The Aegean Sea would later come to be under the control, albeit briefly, of the Kingdom of Macedonia. Philip II and his son Alexander the Great led a series of conquests that led not only to the unification of the Greek mainland and the control of the Aegean Sea under his rule, but also the destruction of the Achaemenid Empire. After Alexander the Great's death, his empire was divided among his generals. Cassander became king of the Hellenistic kingdom of Macedon, which held territory along the western coast of the Aegean, roughly corresponding to modern-day Greece. The Kingdom of Lysimachus had control over the sea's eastern coast. Greece had entered the Hellenistic period. |
Aegean Sea | Roman rule | Roman rule
The Macedonian Wars were a series of conflicts fought by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies in the eastern Mediterranean against several different major Greek kingdoms. They resulted in Roman control or influence over the eastern Mediterranean basin, including the Aegean, in addition to their hegemony in the western Mediterranean after the Punic Wars. During Roman rule, the land around the Aegean Sea fell under the provinces of Achaea, Macedonia, Thracia, Asia and Creta et Cyrenaica (island of Crete). |
Aegean Sea | Medieval period | Medieval period
200px|thumb|upright=1.25|Emirate of Crete, after early conquest of Arabs
The fall of the Western Roman Empire allowed its successor state, the Byzantine Empire, to continue Roman control over the Aegean Sea. However, their territory would later be threatened by the early Muslim conquests initiated by Muhammad in the 7th century. Although the Rashidun Caliphate did not manage to obtain land along the coast of the Aegean Sea, its conquest of the Eastern Anatolian peninsula as well as Egypt, the Levant, and North Africa left the Byzantine Empire weakened. The Umayyad Caliphate expanded the territorial gains of the Rashidun Caliphate, conquering much of North Africa, and threatened the Byzantine Empire's control of Western Anatolia, where it meets the Aegean Sea.
During the 820s, Crete was conquered by a group of Berbers Andalusians exiles led by Abu Hafs Umar al-Iqritishi, and it became an independent Islamic state. The Byzantine Empire launched a campaign that took most of the island back in 842 and 843 under Theoktistos, but the re-conquest was not completed and was soon reversed. Later attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover the island were without success. For the approximately 135 years of its existence, the emirate of Crete was one of the major foes of Byzantium. Crete commanded the sea lanes of the Eastern Mediterranean and functioned as a forward base and haven for Muslim corsair fleets that ravaged the Byzantine-controlled shores of the Aegean Sea. Crete returned to Byzantine rule under Nikephoros II Phokas, who launched a huge campaign against the Emirate of Crete in 960 to 961.
Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Empire threatened Byzantine control of Northern Greece and the Aegean coast to the south. Under Presian and his successor Boris I, the Bulgarian Empire managed to obtain a small portion of the northern Aegean coast. Simeon I of Bulgaria led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion, and managed to conqueror much of the northern and western coasts of the Aegean. The Byzantines later regained control. The Second Bulgarian Empire achieved similar success along, again, the northern and western coasts, under Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria.
200px|thumb|upright=1.25|A 1528 map of the Aegean Sea by Turkish geographer Piri Reis
The Seljuk Turks, under the Seljuk Empire, invaded the Byzantine Empire in 1068, from which they annexed almost all the territories of Anatolia, including the east coast of the Aegean Sea, during the reign of Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire. After the death of his successor, Malik Shah I, the empire was divided, and Malik Shah was succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who founded the Sultanate of Rum. The Byzantines yet again recaptured the eastern coast of the Aegean.
After Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian forces during the Fourth Crusade, the area around the Aegean Sea was fragmented into multiple entities, including the Latin Empire, the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Empire of Nicaea, the Principality of Achaea, and the Duchy of Athens. The Venetians created the maritime state of the Duchy of the Archipelago, which included all the Cyclades except Mykonos and Tinos. The Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine rump state, managed to affect the Recapture of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261 and defeat Epirus. Byzantine successes were not to last; the Ottomans would conquer the area around the Aegean coast, but before their expansion the Byzantine Empire had already been weakened from internal conflict. By the late 14th century, the Byzantine Empire had lost all control of the coast of the Aegean Sea and could exercise power around their capital, Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire then gained control of all the Aegean coast with the exception of Crete, which was a Venetian colony until 1669. |
Aegean Sea | Modern Period | Modern Period
200px|thumb|upright=1.25|German Tanks in Rhodes during the WW2
The Greek War of Independence allowed a Greek state on the coast of the Aegean from 1829 onward. The Ottoman Empire held a presence over the sea for over 500 years until its dissolution following World War I, when it was replaced by modern Turkey. During the war, Greece gained control over the area around the northern coast of the Aegean. By the 1930s, Greece and Turkey had about resumed their present-day borders.
In the Italo-Turkish War of 1912, Italy captured the Dodecanese islands, and had occupied them since, reneging on the 1919 Venizelos–Tittoni agreement to cede them to Greece. The Greco-Italian War took place from October 1940 to April 1941 as part of the Balkans Campaign of World War II. The Italian war aim was to establish a Greek puppet state, which would permit the Italian annexation of the Sporades and Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea, to be administered as a part of the Italian Aegean Islands. The German invasion resulted in the Axis occupation of Greece. The German troops evacuated Athens on 12 October 1944, and by the end of the month, they had withdrawn from mainland Greece. Greece was then liberated by Allied troops. |
Aegean Sea | Economy and politics | Economy and politics
Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays. In ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland, and to some extent, the coastal areas of Anatolia. Many of the islands are volcanic, and marble and iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains.
Of the main islands in the Aegean Sea, two belong to Turkey – Bozcaada (Tenedos) and Gökçeada (Imbros); the rest belong to Greece. Between the two countries, there are political disputes over several aspects of political control over the Aegean space, including the size of territorial waters, air control and the delimitation of economic rights to the continental shelf. These issues are known as the Aegean dispute. |
Aegean Sea | Transport | Transport
Multiple ports are located along the Greek and Turkish coasts of the Aegean Sea. The port of Piraeus in Athens is the chief port in Greece, the largest passenger port in Europe"Presentation". http://www.olp.gr. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 27 December 2008. and the third largest in the world,"ANEK Lines – Piraeus". http://www.anek.gr. Archived from the original on 3 December 2008. Retrieved 27 December 2008. servicing about 20 million passengers annually. With a throughput of 1.4 million TEUs, Piraeus is placed among the top ten ports in container traffic in Europe and the top container port in the Eastern Mediterranean."Container terminal". http://www.olp.gr . Archived from the original on 20 December 2008. Retrieved 27 December 2008. Piraeus is also the commercial hub of Greek shipping. Piraeus bi-annually acts as the focus for a major shipping convention, known as Posidonia, which attracts maritime industry professionals from all over the world. Piraeus is currently Greece's third-busiest port in terms of tons of goods transported, behind Agioi Theodoroi and Thessaloniki. The central port serves ferry routes to almost every island in the eastern portion of Greece, the island of Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and much of the northern and the eastern Aegean Sea, while the western part of the port is used for cargo services.
As of 2007, the Port of Thessaloniki was the second-largest container port in Greece after the port of Piraeus, making it one of the busiest ports in Greece. In 2007, the Port of Thessaloniki handled 14,373,245 tonnes of cargo and 222,824 TEU's. Paloukia, on the island of Salamis, is a major passenger port. |
Aegean Sea | Fishing | Fishing
Fish are Greece's second-largest agricultural export, and Greece has Europe's largest fishing fleet. Fish captured include sardines, mackerel, grouper, grey mullets, sea bass, and seabream. There is a considerable difference between fish catches between the pelagic and demersal zones; with respect to pelagic fisheries, the catches from the northern, central and southern Aegean area groupings are dominated, respectively, by anchovy, horse mackerels, and boops. For demersal fisheries, the catches from the northern and southern Aegean area groupings are dominated by grey mullets and pickerel (Spicara smaris) respectively.
The industry has been impacted by the Great Recession. Overfishing and habitat destruction is also a concern, threatening grouper, and seabream populations, resulting in perhaps a 50% decline of fish catch. To address these concerns, Greek fishermen have been offered a compensation by the government. Although some species are defined as protected or threatened under EU legislation, several illegal species such as the molluscs Pinna nobilis, Charonia tritonis and Lithophaga lithophaga, can be bought in restaurants and fish markets around Greece. |
Aegean Sea | Tourism | Tourism
thumb|Tourists in the town of Mykonos, part of the Cyclades
The Aegean islands within the Aegean Sea are significant tourist destinations. Tourism to the Aegean islands contributes a significant portion of tourism in Greece, especially since the second half of the 20th century. A total of five UNESCO World Heritage sites are located the Aegean Islands; these include the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian and the Cave of the Apocalypse on Patmos,Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "The Historic Centre (Chorá) with the Monastery of Saint-John the Theologian and the Cave of the Apocalypse on the Island of Pátmos". whc.unesco.org. Retrieved 8 September 2016. the Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos in Samos, the Nea Moni of Chios,"Monasteries of Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni of Chios". UNESCO. Retrieved 30 September 2012. the island of Delos,Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "Delos". whc.unesco.org. Retrieved 7 September 2016. and the Medieval City of Rhodes.Centre, UNESCO World Heritage. "Medieval City of Rhodes". whc.unesco.org. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
Greece is one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world with over 33 million visitors in 2018,"Tourism Ministry statistics impress". Retrieved 30 January 2019. and the tourism industry around a quarter of Greece's Gross Domestic Product. The islands of Santorini, Crete, Lesbos, Delos, and Mykonos are common tourist destinations. An estimated 2 million tourists visit Santorini annually. However, concerns relating to overtourism have arisen in recent years, such as issues of inadequate infrastructure and overcrowding. Alongside Greece, Turkey has also been successful in developing resort areas and attracting large number of tourists, contributing to tourism in Turkey. The phrase "Blue Cruise" refers to recreational voyages along the Turkish Riviera, including across the Aegean. The ancient city of Troy, a World Heritage Site, is on the Turkish coast of the Aegean.
Greece and Turkey both take part in the Blue Flag beach certification programme of the Foundation for Environmental Education. The certification is awarded for beaches and marinas meeting strict quality standards including environmental protection, water quality, safety and services criteria. As of 2015, the Blue Flag has been awarded to 395 beaches and 9 marinas in Greece. Southern Aegean beaches on the Turkish coast include Muğla, with 102 beaches awarded with the blue flag, along with İzmir and Aydın, who have 49 and 30 beaches awarded respectively. |
Aegean Sea | See also | See also
Exclusive economic zone of Greece
Geography of Turkey
List of Greek place names
Aegean Boat Report |
Aegean Sea | References | References
|
Aegean Sea | External links | External links
Category:Seas of Greece
Category:Seas of Turkey
Category:Marginal seas of the Mediterranean
Category:European seas
Category:Seas of Asia
Category:Geography of Europe
Category:Geography of West Asia
Category:Landforms of Çanakkale Province
Category:Landforms of Muğla Province
Category:Landforms of İzmir Province
Category:Landforms of Balıkesir Province
Category:Landforms of Edirne Province
Category:Landforms of Aydın Province |
Aegean Sea | Table of Content | Short description, Name and etymology, Geography, Extent, Hydrography, Climate, Population, Biogeography and ecology, Protected areas, History, Ancient history, Ancient Greece, Roman rule, Medieval period, Modern Period, Economy and politics, Transport, Fishing, Tourism, See also, References, External links |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | short description | A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in March 17, 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat", which takes its name from the Russian suffix that is equivalent to '-teen' in English. According to Burgess, the novel was a jeu d'esprit written in just three weeks.
In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century."100 Best Novels" . Modern Library. Retrieved 31 October 2012 The original manuscript of the book has been kept at McMaster University's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since the institution purchased the documents in 1971.
It is considered one of the most influential dystopian books.
In 2022, the novel was included on the "Big Jubilee Read" list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors selected to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Plot summary | Plot summary |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Part 1: Alex's world | Part 1: Alex's world
Alex is a 15-year-old gang leader living in a near-future dystopian city. His friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, "Nadsat") and fellow gang members are Dim, a slow-witted bruiser, who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for "ultra-violence" (random, violent mayhem). Characterised as a sociopath and hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent, quick-witted, and enjoys classical music; he is particularly fond of Beethoven, whom he calls "Lovely Ludwig Van".
The droogs sit in their favourite hangout, the Korova Milk Bar, drinking "milk-plus" (milk laced with the customer's drug of choice) to prepare for a night of ultra-violence. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library; rob a shop, leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious; beat up a beggar; then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and terrorise the young couple living there, beating the husband and gang-raping his wife. The husband is a writer working on a manuscript entitled A Clockwork Orange, and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. At the Korova, Alex strikes Dim for his crude response to a woman's singing of an operatic passage, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his parents' flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume, which he describes as giving him orgasmic bliss before falling asleep.
Alex feigns illness to his parents to stay out of school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P. R. Deltoid, his "post-corrective adviser", Alex visits a record store, where he meets two pre-teen girls. He invites them back to the flat, where he drugs and rapes them. That night after a nap, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood, waiting downstairs in the torn-up and graffitied lobby. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they focus on higher-value targets in their robberies. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then soothes the gang by agreeing to Georgie's plan to rob the home of a wealthy elderly woman. Alex breaks in and knocks the woman unconscious, but when he hears sirens and opens the door to flee, Dim strikes him as revenge for the earlier fight. The gang abandons Alex on the front step to be arrested by the police; while in custody, he learns that the woman has died from her injuries. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Part 2: The Ludovico Technique | Part 2: The Ludovico Technique
Alex is convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. His parents visit one day to inform him that Georgie has been killed in a botched robbery. Two years into his term, he has obtained a job in one of the prison chapels, playing music on the stereo to accompany the Sunday Christian services. After his fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he is chosen to undergo an experimental behaviour modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique in exchange for having the remainder of his sentence commuted. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex is injected with nausea-inducing drugs while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to become severely ill at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, renders Alex unable to enjoy his beloved classical music as before.
The technique's effectiveness is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a man who slaps him and abases himself before a scantily clad young woman. Although the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results, and Alex is released from prison. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Part 3: After prison | Part 3: After prison
Alex returns to his parents' flat, only to find that they are letting his room to a lodger. Now homeless, he wanders the streets and enters a public library, hoping to learn of a painless method for committing suicide. The old scholar whom Alex had assaulted in Part 1 finds him and beats him with the help of several friends. Two policemen come to Alex's rescue, but they turn out to be Dim and Billyboy, a former rival gang leader. They take Alex outside town, brutalise him, and abandon him there. Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realising too late that it is the one he and his droogs invaded in Part 1.
The writer, F. Alexander, still lives here, but his wife has since died of what he believes to be injuries she sustained in the rape. He does not recognise Alex but gives him shelter and questions him about the conditioning he has undergone. Alexander and his colleagues, all highly critical of the government, plan to use Alex as a symbol of state brutality and thus prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected. After Alex inadvertently reveals that he was the ringleader of the home invasion, he is removed from the cottage and locked in an upper-storey bedroom as a relentless barrage of classical music plays over speakers. He attempts suicide by leaping from the window.
Alex wakes up in a hospital, where he is courted by government officials, anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. He is informed that F. Alexander has been "put away" for Alex's protection and his own. Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government once discharged. A round of tests reveals that his old violent impulses have returned, indicating that the hospital doctors have undone the effects of his conditioning. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and reflects, "I was cured all right."
In the final chapter, Alex—now 18 years old and working for the nation's musical recording archives—finds himself halfheartedly preparing for another night of crime with a new gang (Len, Rick, and Bully). After a chance encounter with Pete, who has reformed and married, Alex finds himself taking less and less pleasure in acts of senseless violence. He begins contemplating giving up crime himself to become a productive member of society and start a family of his own while reflecting on the notion that his children could end up being just as destructive as he has been, if not more so. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Omission of the final chapter in the US | Omission of the final chapter in the US
The book has three parts, each with seven chapters. Burgess has stated that the total of 21 chapters was an intentional nod to the age of 21 being recognised as a milestone in human maturation. The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986. In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that US audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has lost his taste for violence and resolves to turn his life around.
At the American publisher's insistence, Burgess allowed its editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the US version, so that the tale would end on a darker note, with Alex becoming his old, ultraviolent self again – an ending which the publisher insisted would be "more realistic" and appealing to a US audience. The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the American edition of the book, and is considered to be "badly flawed" by Burgess. Kubrick called Chapter 21 "an extra chapter" and claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay and that he had never given serious consideration to using it. In Kubrick's opinion – as in the opinion of other readers, including the original American editor – the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book. Kubrick's stance was unusual when compared to the standard Hollywood practice of producing films with the familiar tropes of resolving moral messages and good triumphing over evil before the film's end. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Characters | Characters
Alex: The novel's protagonist and leader among his droogs. He often refers to himself as "Your Humble Narrator". Having coaxed two ten-year-old girls into his bedroom, Alex refers to himself as "Alexander the Large" while raping them; this was later the basis for Alex's claimed surname DeLarge in the 1971 film.
George, Georgie or Georgie Boy: Effectively Alex's greedy second-in-command. Georgie attempts to undermine Alex's status as leader of the gang and take over their gang as the new leader. He is later killed during a botched robbery while Alex is in prison.
Pete: The only one who does not take particular sides when the droogs fight among themselves. He later meets and marries a girl named Georgina, renouncing his violent ways and even losing his former (Nadsat) speech patterns. A chance encounter with Pete in the final chapter influences Alex to realise that he has grown bored with violence and recognise that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction.A Clockwork Orange Resucked . The Floating Library. Retrieved on 2013-10-31.
Dim: An idiotic and thoroughly gormless member of the gang, persistently condescended to by Alex, but respected to some extent by his droogs for his formidable fighting abilities, his weapon of choice being a length of bike chain. He later becomes a police officer, exacting his revenge on Alex for the abuse he once suffered under his command.
P. R. Deltoid: A criminal rehabilitation social worker assigned the task of keeping Alex on the straight and narrow. He seemingly has no clue about dealing with young people, and is devoid of empathy or understanding for his troublesome charge. Indeed, when Alex is arrested for murdering an old woman and then ferociously beaten by several police officers, Deltoid simply spits on him.
Prison Chaplain: The character who first questions whether it is moral to turn a violent person into a behavioural automaton who can make no choice in such matters. This is the only character who is truly concerned about Alex's welfare; he is not taken seriously by Alex, though. He is nicknamed by Alex "prison charlie" or "chaplin", a pun on Charlie Chaplin.
Billyboy: A rival of Alex's. Early on in the story, Alex and his droogs battle Billyboy and his droogs, which ends abruptly when the police arrive. Later, after Alex is released from prison, Billyboy (along with Dim, who like Billyboy has become a police officer) rescues Alex from a mob, then subsequently beats him in a location out of town.
Prison Governor: The man who decides to let Alex "choose" to be the first reformed by the Ludovico technique.
The Minister of the Interior: The government high-official who determined that the Ludovico's technique will be used to cut recidivism. He is referred to as the Minister of Interior or Inferior by Alex.
Dr Branom: A scientist, co-developer of the Ludovico technique. He appears friendly and almost paternal towards Alex at first, before forcing him into the theatre and what Alex calls the "chair of torture".
Dr Brodsky: Branom's colleague and co-developer of the Ludovico technique. He seems much more passive than Branom and says considerably less.
F. Alexander: An author who was in the process of typing his magnum opus A Clockwork Orange when Alex and his droogs broke into his house, beat him, tore up his work and then brutally gang-raped his wife, which caused her subsequent death. He is left deeply scarred by these events and when he encounters Alex two years later, he uses him as a guinea pig in a sadistic experiment intended to prove the Ludovico technique unsound. The government imprisons him afterwards. He is given the name Frank Alexander in the film.
Cat Woman: An indirectly named woman who blocks Alex's gang's entrance scheme, and threatens to shoot Alex and set her cats on him if he does not leave. After Alex breaks into her house, she fights with him, ordering her cats to join the melee, but reprimands Alex for fighting them off. She sustains a fatal blow to the head during the scuffle. She is given the name Miss Weathers in the film. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Analysis | Analysis |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Background | Background
A Clockwork Orange was written in Hove, then a senescent English seaside town. Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had developed, based around coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs.A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback) by Anthony Burgess, Blake Morrison xv England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency. Burgess stated that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried.Burgess, A. A Clockwork Orange, Penguin UK, 2011, introduction by Blake Morrison, page 17 : " his first wife, Lynne, was beaten, kicked and robbed in London by a gang of four GI deserters ". In its investigation of free will, the book's target is ostensibly the concept of behaviourism, pioneered by such figures as B. F. Skinner.A Clockwork Orange (Hardback) by Anthony Burgess, Will Self Burgess later stated that he wrote the book in three weeks. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Title<!--linked from 'A Clockwork Orange (film)'--> | Title
Burgess has offered several clarifications about the meaning and origin of its title:
He had overheard the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" in a London pub in 1945 and assumed it was a Cockney expression. In Clockwork Marmalade, an essay published in the Listener in 1972, he said that he had heard the phrase several times since that occasion. He also explained the title in response to a question from William Everson on the television programme Camera Three in 1972,
No other record of the expression being used before 1962 has ever appeared, with Kingsley Amis going so far as to note in his Memoirs (1991) that no trace of it appears in Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang. However, saying "as queer as ..." followed by an improbable object: "... a clockwork orange", or "... a four-speed walking stick" or "... a left-handed corkscrew" etc. predates Burgess's novel. An early example, "as queer as Dick's hatband", appeared in 1796, and was alluded to in 1757.
His second explanation was that it was a pun on the Malay word orang, meaning "man". The novella contains no other Malay words or links.
In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, he wrote that the title was a metaphor for "an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into a mechanism".
In his essay Clockwork Oranges, Burgess asserts that "this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian or mechanical laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness".
While addressing the reader in a letter before some editions of the book, the author says that when a man ceases to have free will, they are no longer a man. "Just a clockwork orange", a shiny, appealing object, but "just a toy to be wound-up by either God or the Devil, or (what is increasingly replacing both) the State."
This title alludes to the protagonist's negative emotional responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will subsequent to the administration of the Ludovico Technique. To induce this conditioning, Alex is forced to watch scenes of violence on a screen that are systematically paired with negative physical stimulation. The negative physical stimulation takes the form of nausea and "feelings of terror", which are caused by an emetic medicine administered just before the presentation of the films.
In its original drafts, Burgess used the working title 'The Ludovico Technique,' as he himself described in the foreword in the April 1995 publication. Along with removing the 21st chapter as insisted by his publisher in the original 1962 edition, he would also change the finished product's name to its current title. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Use of slang | Use of slang
The book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang argot which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slavic words, Cockney rhyming slang and derived Russian (like baboochka). For instance, these terms have the following meanings in Nadsat: droog (друг) = friend; moloko (молоко) = milk; gulliver (голова) = head; malchick (мальчик) or malchickiwick = boy; soomka (сумка) = sack or bag; Bog (Бог) = God; horrorshow (хорошо) = good; prestoopnick (преступник) = criminal; rooker (рука) = hand; cal (кал) = crap; veck (человек) = man or guy; litso (лицо) = face; malenky (маленький) = little; and so on. Some words Burgess invented himself or just adapted from existing languages. Compare Polari.
One of Alex's doctors explains the language to a colleague as "odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." Some words are not derived from anything, but merely easy to guess, e.g. "in-out, in-out" or "the old in-out" means sexual intercourse. Cutter, however, means "money", because "cutter" rhymes with "bread-and-butter"; this is rhyming slang, which is intended to be impenetrable to outsiders (especially eavesdropping policemen). Additionally, slang like appypolly loggy ("apology") seems to derive from school boy slang. This reflects Alex's age of 15.
In the first edition of the book, no key was provided, and the reader was left to interpret the meaning from the context. In his appendix to the restored edition, Burgess explained that the slang would keep the book from seeming dated, and served to muffle "the raw response of pornography" from the acts of violence.
The term "ultraviolence", referring to excessive or unjustified violence, was coined by Burgess in the book, which includes the phrase "do the ultra-violent". The term's association with aesthetic violence has led to its use in the media. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Banning and censorship history in the US | Banning and censorship history in the US
The first major incident of censorship of A Clockwork Orange took place in 1973, when a bookseller was arrested for selling the novel (although the charges were later dropped). In 1976, A Clockwork Orange was removed from an Aurora, Colorado high school because of "objectionable language". A year later in 1977 it was removed from high school classrooms in Westport, Massachusetts over similar concerns with "objectionable" language. In 1982, it was removed from two Anniston, Alabama libraries, later to be reinstated on a restricted basis. However, each of these instances came after the release of Stanley Kubrick's popular 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, itself the subject of much controversy after exposing a much larger part of the populace to the themes of the novel. In 2024 the book was banned in Texas by the Katy Independent School District on the basis that the novel is "adopting, supporting, or promoting gender fluidity" despite also pronouncing a bullying policy that protects infringements on the rights of the student.https://www.katyisd.org/Page/4123 |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Reception | Reception |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Initial response | Initial response
The Sunday Telegraph review was positive, and described the book as "entertaining ... even profound".Chitty, Susan. "Is That the Lot?" Sunday Telegraph, 13 May 1962, p. 9. Kingsley Amis in The Observer acclaimed the novel as "cheerful horror", writing "Mr Burgess has written a fine farrago of outrageousness, one which incidentally suggests a view of juvenile violence I can't remember having met before".Amis, Kingsley From the Observer archive, 13 May 1962: A Clockwork Orange reviewed The Guardian Malcolm Bradbury wrote "All of Mr Burgess's powers as a comic writer, which are considerable, have gone into the rich language of his inverted Utopia. If you can stomach the horrors, you'll enjoy the manner". Roald Dahl called it "a terrifying and marvellous book". Many reviewers praised the inventiveness of the language, but expressed unease at the violent subject matter. The Spectator praised Burgess's "extraordinary technical feat" but was uncomfortable with "a certain arbitrariness about the plot which is slightly irritating". New Statesman acclaimed Burgess for addressing "acutely and savagely the tendencies of our time" but called the book "a great strain to read". The Sunday Times review was negative, and described the book as "a very ordinary, brutal and psychologically shallow story".Brooks, Jeremy. "A Bedsitter in Dublin". Sunday Times, 13 May 1962, p. 32. The Times also reviewed the book negatively, describing it as "a somewhat clumsy experiment with science fiction [with] clumsy cliches about juvenile delinquency"."New Fiction". Times, 17 May 1962, p. 16. The violence was criticised as "unconvincing in detail". |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Writer's appraisal | Writer's appraisal
Burgess dismissed A Clockwork Orange as "too didactic to be artistic".A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback) by Anthony Burgess, Blake Morrison xxii He said that the violent content of the novel "nauseated" him.Calder,, John Mackenzie, and Anthony Burgess. "Ugh". The Times Literary Supplement, 2 January 1964, p. 9.
In 1985, Burgess published Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence and while discussing Lady Chatterley's Lover in his biography, Burgess compared the notoriety of D. H. Lawrence's novel with A Clockwork Orange: "We all suffer from the popular desire to make the known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation, and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover."Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence (Heinemann, London 1985) Anthony Burgess, p 205 |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Awards and nominations and rankings | Awards and nominations and rankings
1983 – Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee)
1999 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2002 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2003 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2006 – Prometheus Award (Nomination)
2008 – Prometheus Award (Hall of Fame Award)
A Clockwork Orange was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language books from 1923 to 2005. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Adaptations | Adaptations
thumb|right|Alex DeLarge in Kubrick's dystopian film A Clockwork Orange (1971)
A 1965 film by Andy Warhol entitled Vinyl was an adaptation of Burgess's novel.
The best known adaptation of the novella is the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, with Malcolm McDowell as Alex. In 1987, Burgess published a stage play titled A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music. The play includes songs, written by Burgess, which are inspired by Beethoven and Nadsat slang.
A manga anthology by Osamu Tezuka entitled Tokeijikake no Ringo (Clockwork Apple) was released in 1983.
In 1988, a German adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at the intimate theatre of Bad Godesberg featured a musical score by the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen which, combined with orchestral clips of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "other dirty melodies" (so stated by the subtitle), was released on the album Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau. The track Hier kommt Alex became one of the band's signature songs.
thumb|Vanessa Claire Smith, Sterling Wolfe, Michael Holmes, and Ricky Coates in Brad Mays' multi-media stage production of A Clockwork Orange, 2003, Los Angeles. (photo: Peter Zuehlke) thumb|Vanessa Claire Smith in Brad Mays' multi-media stage production of A Clockwork Orange, 2003, Los Angeles. (photo: Peter Zuehlke)
In February 1990, another musical version was produced at the Barbican Theatre in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Titled A Clockwork Orange: 2004, it received mostly negative reviews, with John Peter of The Sunday Times of London calling it "only an intellectual Rocky Horror Show", and John Gross of The Sunday Telegraph calling it "a clockwork lemon". Even Burgess himself, who wrote the script based on his novel, was disappointed. According to The Evening Standard, he called the score, written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, "neo-wallpaper". Burgess had originally worked alongside the director of the production, Ron Daniels, and envisioned a musical score that was entirely classical. Unhappy with the decision to abandon that score, he heavily criticised the band's experimental mix of hip-hop, liturgical, and gothic music. Lise Hand of The Irish Independent reported The Edge as saying that Burgess's original conception was "a score written by a novelist rather than a songwriter". Calling it "meaningless glitz", Jane Edwardes of 20/20 magazine said that watching this production was "like being invited to an expensive French Restaurant – and being served with a Big Mac."
In 1994, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater put on a production of A Clockwork Orange directed by Terry Kinney. The American premiere of novelist Anthony Burgess's own adaptation of his A Clockwork Orange starred K. Todd Freeman as Alex. In 2001, UNI Theatre (Mississauga, Ontario) presented the Canadian premiere of the play under the direction of Terry Costa.
In 2002, Godlight Theatre Company presented the New York Premiere adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at Manhattan Theatre Source. The production went on to play at the SoHo Playhouse (2002), Ensemble Studio Theatre (2004), 59E59 Theaters (2005) and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2005). While at Edinburgh, the production received rave reviews from the press while playing to sold-out audiences. The production was directed by Godlight's artistic director, Joe Tantalo.
In 2003, Los Angeles director Brad Mays and the ARK Theatre Company staged a multi-media adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, which was named "Pick of the Week" by the LA Weekly and nominated for three of the 2004 LA Weekly Theater Awards: Direction, Revival Production (of a 20th-century work), and Leading Female Performance. Vanessa Claire Smith won Best Actress for her gender-bending portrayal of Alex, the music-loving teenage sociopath. This production utilised three separate video streams outputted to seven onstage video monitors – six 19-inch and one 40-inch. In order to preserve the first-person narrative of the book, a pre-recorded video stream of Alex, "your humble narrator", was projected onto the 40-inch monitor, thereby freeing the onstage character during passages which would have been awkward or impossible to sustain in the breaking of the fourth wall.
An adaptation of the work, based on the original novel, the film and Burgess's own stage version, was performed by the SiLo Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand in early 2007.
In 2021, the International Anthony Burgess Foundation premiered a webpage cataloging various productions of A Clockwork Orange from around the world. |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | See also | See also
Classical conditioning
List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange
List of stories set in a future now in the past
MKUltra
Violence in art |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | References | References |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Further reading | Further reading
A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music. Century Hutchinson Ltd. (1987). An extract is quoted on several web sites: Anthony Burgess from A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music (Century Hutchinson Ltd, 1987), , A Clockwork Orange – From A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music
Burgess, Anthony (1978). "Clockwork Oranges". In 1985. London: Hutchinson. (extracts quoted here)
|
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | External links | External links
A Clockwork Orange at SparkNotes
A Clockwork Orange at Literapedia
A Clockwork Orange (1962) |Last chapter |Anthony Burgess (1917–1993)
Comparisons with the Kubrick film adaptation
Dalrymple, Theodore. "A Prophetic and Violent Masterpiece", City Journal
Giola, Ted. "A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess" at Conceptual Fiction
Priestley, Brenton. "Of Clockwork Apples and Oranges: Burgess and Kubrick (2002)"
Category:1962 British novels
Category:1962 science fiction novels
Novel
Category:Books written in fictional dialects
Category:British crime novels
Category:British novels adapted into films
Category:British novels adapted into plays
Category:British philosophical novels
Category:British science fiction novels
Category:Censored books
Category:Counterculture of the 1960s
Category:Dystopian novels
Category:English-language novels
Category:Fiction about mind control
Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators
Category:Fiction about gang rape
Category:Heinemann (publisher) books
Category:Metafictional novels
Category:Novels about music
Category:Novels about rape
Category:Novels by Anthony Burgess
Category:Obscenity controversies in literature
Category:Science fiction novels adapted into films |
A Clockwork Orange (novel) | Table of Content | short description, Plot summary, Part 1: Alex's world, Part 2: The Ludovico Technique, Part 3: After prison, Omission of the final chapter in the US, Characters, Analysis, Background, Title<!--linked from 'A Clockwork Orange (film)'-->, Use of slang, Banning and censorship history in the US, Reception, Initial response, Writer's appraisal, Awards and nominations and rankings, Adaptations, See also, References, Further reading, External links |
Amsterdam | Short description | Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital and most populated city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Amsterdam was founded at the mouth of the Amstel River, which was dammed to control flooding. Originally a small fishing village in the 12th century, Amsterdam became a major world port during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, when the Netherlands was an economic powerhouse. Amsterdam was the leading centre for finance and trade, as well as a hub of secular art production.Cambridge.org , Capitals of Capital -A History of International Financial Centres – 1780–2005, Youssef Cassis, In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded and new neighborhoods and suburbs were built. The city has a long tradition of openness, liberalism, and tolerance.Shorto, Russell. Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City. New York: Vintage Books 2014. Cycling is key to the city's modern character, and there are numerous biking paths and lanes spread throughout.Nello-Deakin, Samuel, and Anna Nikolaeva. "The human infrastructure of a cycling city: Amsterdam through the eyes of international newcomers." Urban Geography 42.3 (2021): 289–311.Feddes, Fred, Marjolein de Lange, and Marco te Brömmelstroet. "Hard work in paradise. The contested making of Amsterdam as a cycling city." The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure. Policy Press, 2020. 133–156.
Amsterdam's main attractions include its historic canals; the , the state museum with Dutch Golden Age art; the Van Gogh Museum; the Dam Square, where the Royal Palace of Amsterdam and former city hall are located; the Amsterdam Museum; Stedelijk Museum, with modern art; the concert hall; the Anne Frank House; the , the ; Hortus Botanicus, NEMO, the red-light district and cannabis coffee shops. The city is known for its nightlife and festival activity, with several nightclubs among the world's most famous. Its artistic heritage, canals, and narrow canal houses with gabled façades, well-preserved legacies of the city's 17th-century Golden Age, have attracted millions of visitors annually.
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, founded in 1602, is considered the oldest "modern" securities market stock exchange in the world. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered an alpha-world city. The city is the cultural capital of the Netherlands.After Athens in 1888 and Florence in 1986, Amsterdam was in 1986 chosen as the European Capital of Culture, confirming its eminent position in Europe and the Netherlands. See EC.europa.eu for an overview of the European cities and capitals of culture over the years. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters in the city.Forbes.com , Forbes Global 2000 Largest Companies – Dutch rankings. Many of the world's largest companies are based here or have established their European headquarters in the city, such as technology companies Uber, Netflix, and Tesla. In 2022, Amsterdam was ranked the ninth-best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th on quality of living for environment and infrastructure by Mercer. The city was ranked 4th place globally as a top tech hub in 2019. The Port of Amsterdam is the fifth largest in Europe. The KLM hub and Amsterdam's main airport, Schiphol, is the busiest airport in the Netherlands, third in Europe. The Dutch capital is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, with about 180 nationalities represented. Immigration and ethnic segregation in Amsterdam is a current issue.Musterd, Sako. "Immigration and ethnic segregation in the Netherlands with a special focus on Amsterdam." Ethnic Minorities and Inter-Ethnic Relations in Context. Routledge, 2017. 287–303.
Amsterdam's notable residents throughout its history include painters Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh, 17th-century philosophers Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, René Descartes, and the Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank. |
Amsterdam | History | History |
Amsterdam | Prehistory | Prehistory
Due to its geographical location in what used to be wet peatland, the founding of Amsterdam is later than other urban centres in the Low Countries. However, around the area of what later became Amsterdam, farmers settled as early as three millennia ago. They lived along the prehistoric IJ river and upstream of its tributary Amstel. The prehistoric IJ was a shallow and quiet stream in peatland behind beach ridges. This secluded area was able to grow into an important local settlement centre, especially in the late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Roman Age. Neolithic and Roman artefacts have also been found in the prehistoric Amstel bedding under Amsterdam's Damrak and Rokin, such as shards of Bell Beaker culture pottery (2200–2000 BC) and a granite grinding stone (2700–2750 BC),, pp. 69–71. but the location of these artefacts around the river banks of the Amstel probably points to the presence of a modest semi-permanent or seasonal settlement. Until water issues were controlled, a permanent settlement would not have been possible, since the river mouth and the banks of the Amstel in this period in time were too wet for permanent habitation., pp. 62–63. |
Amsterdam | Founding | Founding
The origins of Amsterdam are linked to the development of a dam on the Amstel River called Amestelle, meaning 'watery area', from Aa(m) 'river' + stelle 'site at a shoreline', 'river bank'. In this area, land reclamation started as early as the late 10th century. Amestelle was located along a side arm of the IJ. This sidearm took its name from the eponymous land: Amstel. Amestelle was inhabited by farmers, who lived more inland and more upstream, where the land was not as wet as at the banks of the downstream river mouth. These farmers were starting the reclamation around upstream Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, and later at the other side of the river at Amstelveen. The Van Amstel family, known in documents by this name since 1019, held the stewardship in this northwestern nook of the ecclesiastical district of the bishop of Utrecht. The family later served also under the count of Holland.
A major turning point in the development of the Amstel River mouth was the All Saint's Flood of 1170. In an extremely short time, the shallow river IJ turned into a wide estuary, which from then on offered the Amstel an open connection to the Zuiderzee, IJssel, and waterways further afield. This made the water flow of the Amstel more active, so excess water could be drained better. With drier banks, the downstream Amstel mouth became attractive for permanent habitation. Moreover, the river had grown from an insignificant peat stream into a junction of international waterways., pp. 75–77. A settlement was built here immediately after the landscape change of 1170. Right from the start of its foundation, it focused on traffic, production, and trade; not on farming, as opposed to how communities had lived further upstream for the past 200 years and northward for thousands of years., pp. 84–85. The construction of a dam at the mouth of the Amstel, eponymously named Dam, is historically estimated to have occurred between 1264 and 1275. The settlement first appeared in a document from 1275, concerning a road toll granted by the count of Holland Floris V to the residents apud Amestelledamme 'at the dam in the Amstel' or 'at the dam of Amstelland'., p. 55. This allowed the inhabitants of the village to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks and dams. This was a move in a years-long struggle for power in the area between the count of Holland and the Amstel family who governed the area on behalf of the bishop of Utrecht. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam. |
Amsterdam | Middle Ages | Middle Ages
thumb|left|The Oude Kerk was consecrated in 1306 AD.The bishop of Utrecht granted Amsterdam zone rights in either 1300 or 1306. The in 1345 rendered the city an important place of pilgrimage. During the heyday of the Stille Omgang, which became the expression of the pilgrimage after the Protestant Reformation,Charles Caspers & Peter Jan Margry, Het Mirakel van Amsterdam. Biografie van een betwiste devotie (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2017) pp. 59–60. up to 90,000 pilgrims came to Amsterdam.
From the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League. From the 15th century on the city established an independent trade route with the Baltic Sea in grain and timber, cutting out the Hanseatic League as middlemen. The city became the staple market of Europe for bulk cargo. This was made possible due to innovations in the herring fishery, from which Amsterdam reaped great wealth. Herring had demand in markets all around Europe. Inventions of on-board gibbing and the haringbuis in 1415, made longer voyages feasible and hence enabled Dutch fishermen to follow the herring shoals far from the coasts, giving them a monopoly in the industry.
The herring industry relied on international trade cooperation and large initial investments in ships. This required many highly skilled and unskilled workers to cooperate, as well as the import of the necessary raw materials to turn an unfinished product into a marketable one. This required merchants to then sell it throughout the continent and bookkeepers and accountants to divide the profit. In short, the herring industry was setting up the foundations for what would later become the transcontinental trade system and the Dutch Golden Age, with Amsterdam at its centre, hence the saying "Amsterdam is built on Herringbones". |
Amsterdam | Conflict with Spain | Conflict with Spain
upright=1.5|thumb|Amsterdam citizens celebrating the Peace of Münster, 30 January 1648. Painting by Bartholomeus van der Helst
The Low Countries were part of the Hapsburg inheritance and came under the Spanish monarchy in the early sixteenth century. The Dutch rebelled against Philip II of Spain, who led a defense of Catholicism during the Protestant Reformation. The main reasons for the uprising were the imposition of new taxes, the tenth penny, and the religious persecution of Protestants by the newly introduced Inquisition. The revolt escalated into the Eighty Years' War, which ultimately led to Dutch independence. Strongly pushed by Dutch Revolt leader William the Silent, the Dutch Republic became known for its relative religious tolerance. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Protestant Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants, and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam. The influx of Flemish printers and the city's intellectual tolerance made Amsterdam a centre for the European free press.A case in point is that after his trial and sentencing in Rome in 1633, Galileo chose Lodewijk Elzevir in Amsterdam to publish one of his finest works, Two New Sciences. See Wade Rowland (2003), Galileo's Mistake, A new look at the epic confrontation between Galileo and the Church, New York: Arcade Publishing, , p. 260. |
Amsterdam | Centre of the Dutch Golden Age | Centre of the Dutch Golden Age
upright|thumb|left|Courtyard of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange by Emanuel de Witte, 1653. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange was the first stock exchange to introduce continuous trade in the early 17th century.
During the 17th century, Amsterdam experienced what is considered its Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the Western world.Haverkamp-Bergmann, E. Rembrandt; The Night Watch. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 57. Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network. Amsterdam's merchants had the largest share in both the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company. These companies acquired overseas possessions that later became Dutch colonies.
Amsterdam was Europe's most important hub for the shipment of goods and was the leading financial centre of the Western world.Amsterdam in the 17th century , The University of North Carolina at Pembroke In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by trading in its own shares. The Bank of Amsterdam started operations in 1609, acting as a full-service bank for Dutch merchant bankers and as a reserve bank.
From the 17th century onwards, Amsterdam also became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. The city was a major destination port for Dutch slave ships participating in the triangular trade, which lasted until the United Netherlands abolished the Netherlands' involvement in the trade in 1814 at the request of the British government. Amsterdam was also a member of the Society of Suriname, an organisation founded to oversee the management of the Dutch colony of Surinam, which was economically dependent on slave plantations. On 1 July 2021, the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, apologised for the city's involvement in the slave trade. |
Amsterdam | Decline and modernization | Decline and modernization
Amsterdam's prosperity declined during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The wars of the Dutch Republic with England (latterly, Great Britain) and France took their toll on the city. During the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, Amsterdam's significance reached its lowest point, with Holland being absorbed into the French Empire. However, the later establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 marked a turning point.
thumb|upright=0.75|right|View of Vijzelstraat looking towards the Muntplein, 1891
The end of the 19th century is sometimes called Amsterdam's second Golden Age. New museums, a railway station, and the were built; At the same time, the Industrial Revolution reached the city. The Amsterdam–Rhine Canal was dug to give Amsterdam a direct connection to the Rhine, and the North Sea Canal was dug to give the port a shorter connection to the North Sea. Both projects dramatically improved commerce with the rest of Europe and the world. In 1906, Joseph Conrad gave a brief description of Amsterdam as seen from the seaside, in The Mirror of the Sea. |
Amsterdam | 20th century – present | 20th century – present
thumb|left|Photochrom of Amsterdam's Dam Square at the beginning of the 20th century
Shortly before the First World War, the city started to expand again, and new suburbs were built. Even though the Netherlands remained neutral in this war, Amsterdam suffered a food shortage, and heating fuel became scarce. The shortages sparked riots in which several people were killed. These riots are known as the Aardappeloproer (Potato Rebellion). People started looting stores and warehouses to get supplies, mainly food.
thumb|The rebuilt Magere Brug, around 1938.
On 1 January 1921, after a flood in 1916, the depleted municipalities of Durgerdam, Holysloot, Zunderdorp and Schellingwoude, all lying north of Amsterdam, were, at their own request, annexed to the city. Between the wars, the city continued to expand, most notably to the west of the Jordaan district in the Frederik Hendrikbuurt and surrounding neighbourhoods.
Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and took control of the country. Some Amsterdam citizens sheltered Jews, thereby exposing themselves and their families to a high risk of being imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported and murdered in Nazi concentration camps, including 56,521 victims in Auschwitz and a further number of 34,082 accounted for in Sobibor. Around 60,000 Jewish inhabitants, including Jewish prewar refugees from Austria and Germany, were living in Amsterdam at the time of the Nazi occupation. Only those provided with a safe haven, avoiding deportation and denunciation, or the very few who returned from the camps at the end of the war, managed to survive.
At first the German occupation authorities were very cautious, wanting to convince the city inhabitants of their sincerity. However, their outlook soon turned to cynicism and brutality. A cause in the change of their behaviour was an attack by a Dutch resistance fighter against a collaborator belonging to the paramilitary Dutch fascist organisation, the NSB. The injured man died and in response Heinrich Himmler ordered reprisals.427 Amsterdam Jews were arrested on 22 February, 1941 and sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. Only two people survived.
Incensed, a broad spectrum of passive resistance was organized by the Dutch Underground. Trade unions, among them socialist and Communist Party activists, led the protest. Their outcry received support from white collar employees in the civil service and support from the local diocese of the Church. Approval was also given and encouraged by the Dutch government-in-exile under Queen Wilhelmina in London.
The German authorities were taken completely by surprise by the level of resistance known as the February strike. 300,000 people participated in the protest against the arrests of Jews. However, the occupier soon responded crudely and brutally, smashing union and illegal party activity. With the edifice of resistance removed the SS and German police apparatus, supported by collaborators in the Dutch auxiliary police, arrested thousands of defenceless Jews in Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter. The two main waves of arrest, culminating in deportation, occurred on 26 May 1943 and on 20 June 1943.
The most famous deportee was the young Jewish girl Anne Frank, whose safe hiding place with her family was betrayed and discovered in August, 1944. After a spell at the 'holding camp' in Westerbork Anna and her family were sent to Auschwitz, where her mother was murdered. From there she and her sister Margot were moved onto Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they died amidst appalling and inhumane conditions in early 1945.
At the end of the Second World War, and as a consequence of the Nazi occupation, Amsterdam was in a state of crisis. Communication with the rest of the country broke down, and food and fuel became scarce. Many citizens traveled to the countryside to forage. Dogs, cats, raw sugar beets, and tulip bulbs—cooked to a pulp—were consumed to stay alive. Many trees in Amsterdam were cut down for fuel, and wood was taken from the houses, apartments and other buildings of deported Jews - a sad affair that no one relished. The city was finally liberated by Canadian forces on 5 May 1945, shortly before the end of the war in Europe.
right|thumb|upright=0.75|People celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands at the end of World War II on 8 May 1945
Many new suburbs, such as Osdorp, Slotervaart, Slotermeer and Geuzenveld, were built in the years after the Second World War. These suburbs contained many public parks and wide-open spaces, and the new buildings provided improved housing conditions with larger and brighter rooms, gardens, and balconies. Because of the war and other events of the 20th century, almost the entire city centre had fallen into disrepair. As society was changing, politicians and other influential figures made plans to redesign large parts of it. There was an increasing demand for office buildings, and also for new roads, as the automobile became available to most people. A metro started operating in 1977 between the new suburb of Bijlmermeer in the city's Zuidoost (southeast) exclave and the centre of Amsterdam. Further plans were to build a new highway above the metro to connect Amsterdam Centraal and the city centre with other parts of the city.
The required large-scale demolitions began in Amsterdam's former Jewish neighborhood. Smaller streets, such as the Jodenbreestraat and Weesperstraat, were widened and almost all houses and buildings were demolished. At the peak of the demolition, the Nieuwmarktrellen (Nieuwmarkt riots) broke out; the rioters expressed their fury about the demolition caused by the restructuring of the city.
As a result, the demolition was stopped and the highway into the city's centre was never fully built; only the metro was completed. Only a few streets remained widened. The new city hall was built on the almost completely demolished Waterlooplein. Meanwhile, large private organizations, such as Stadsherstel Amsterdam, were founded to restore the entire city centre. Although the success of this struggle is visible today, efforts for further restoration are still ongoing. The entire city centre has reattained its former splendour and, as a whole, is now a protected area. Many of its buildings have become monuments, and in July 2010 the Grachtengordel (the three concentric canals: Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht) was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
thumb|left|The 17th-century Canals of Amsterdam were listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2010, contributing to Amsterdam's fame as the "Venice of the North". Along with De Wallen, the canals are the focal point for tourists in the city.
In the 21st century, the Amsterdam city centre has attracted large numbers of tourists: between 2012 and 2015, the annual number of visitors rose from 10 to 17 million. Real estate prices have surged, and local shops are making way for tourist-oriented ones, making the centre unaffordable for the city's inhabitants. These developments have evoked comparisons with Venice, a city thought to be overwhelmed by the tourist influx.
Construction of a new metro line connecting the part of the city north of the IJ to its southern part was started in 2003. The project was controversial because its cost had exceeded its budget by a factor of three by 2008, because of fears of damage to buildings in the centre, and because construction had to be halted and restarted multiple times. The new metro line was completed in 2018.
Since 2014, renewed focus has been given to urban regeneration and renewal, especially in areas directly bordering the city centre, such as Frederik Hendrikbuurt. This urban renewal and expansion of the traditional centre of the city—with the construction of artificial islands of the new eastern IJburg neighbourhood—is part of the Structural Vision Amsterdam 2040 initiative. |
Amsterdam | Geography | Geography
alt=|thumb|Satellite photo of Amsterdam, 2020
thumb|Topographic map of Amsterdam
thumb|Large-scale map of the city centre of Amsterdam, including sightseeing markers, .
Amsterdam is located in the Western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland, the capital of which is not Amsterdam, but rather Haarlem. The river Amstel ends in the city centre and connects to a large number of canals that eventually terminate in the IJ. Amsterdam's elevation is about below sea level. The surrounding land is flat as it is formed of large polders. An artificial forest, Amsterdamse Bos, is in the southwest. Amsterdam is connected to the North Sea through the long North Sea Canal.
Amsterdam is intensely urbanised, as is the Amsterdam metropolitan area surrounding the city. Comprising of land, the city proper has 4,457 inhabitants per km2 and 2,275 houses per km2. Parks and nature reserves make up 12% of Amsterdam's land area. |
Amsterdam | Water | Water
Amsterdam has more than of canals, most of which are navigable by boat. The city's three main canals are the Prinsengracht, the Herengracht, and the Keizersgracht.
In the Middle Ages, Amsterdam was surrounded by a moat, called the Singel, which now forms the innermost ring in the city, and gives the city centre a horseshoe shape. The city is also served by a seaport. It has been compared with Venice, due to its division into about 90 islands, which are linked by more than 1,200 bridges. |
Amsterdam | Climate | Climate
thumb|left|Nieuwendammerdijk en Buiksloterdijk, Amsterdam-Noord, winter 2010
Amsterdam has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) strongly influenced by its proximity to the North Sea to the west, with prevailing westerly winds.
Amsterdam, as well as most of the North Holland province, lies in USDA Hardiness zone 8b. Frosts mainly occur during spells of easterly or northeasterly winds from the inner European continent. Even then, because Amsterdam is surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water, as well as having a significant heat-island effect, nights rarely fall below , while it could easily be in Hilversum, southeast.
Summers are moderately warm with several hot and humid days with occasional rain every month. The average daily high in August is , and or higher is only measured on average on 2.5 days, placing Amsterdam in AHS Heat Zone 2. The record extremes range from to .
Days with more than of precipitation are common, on average 133 days per year.
Amsterdam's average annual precipitation is . A large part of this precipitation falls as light rain or brief showers. Cloudy and damp days are common during the cooler months of October through March. |
Amsterdam | Demographics | Demographics
thumb|Amsterdam population pyramid in 2022 |
Amsterdam | Historical population | Historical population
In 1300, Amsterdam's population was around 1,000 people. While many towns in Holland experienced population decline during the 15th and 16th centuries, Amsterdam's population grew, mainly due to the rise of the profitable Baltic maritime trade especially in grain after the Burgundian victory in the Dutch–Hanseatic War in 1441. The population of Amsterdam was only modest compared to the towns and cities of Flanders and Brabant, which comprised the most urbanized area of the Low Countries.Henk van Nierop, "Amsterdam", Oxford Bibliographies Online. 28 March 2018. ; and Jessica Dijkman, Shaping Medieval Markets: The Organisation of Commodity Markets in Holland, (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
This changed when, during the Dutch Revolt, many people from the Southern Netherlands fled to the North, especially after Antwerp fell to Spanish forces in 1585. Jews from Spain, Portugal, and Eastern Europe similarly settled in Amsterdam, as did Germans and Scandinavians. In thirty years, Amsterdam's population more than doubled between 1585 and 1610. By 1600, its population was around 50,000. During the 1660s, Amsterdam's population reached 200,000. The city's growth levelled off and the population stabilized around 240,000 for most of the 18th century.
In 1750, Amsterdam was the fourth largest city in Western Europe, behind London (676,000), Paris (560,000) and Naples (324,000). This was all the more remarkable as Amsterdam was neither the capital city nor the seat of government of the Dutch Republic, which itself was a much smaller state than Great Britain, France or the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to those other metropolises, Amsterdam was also surrounded by large towns such as Leiden (about 67,000), Rotterdam (45,000), Haarlem (38,000), and Utrecht (30,000).
The city's population declined in the early 19th century, dipping under 200,000 in 1820. By the second half of the 19th century, industrialization spurred renewed growth. Amsterdam's population hit an all-time high of 872,000 in 1959, before declining in the following decades due to government-sponsored suburbanisation to so-called groeikernen (growth centres) such as Purmerend and Almere. Between 1970 and 1980, Amsterdam experienced a sharp population decline, peaking at a net loss of 25,000 people in 1973. By 1985 the city had only 675,570 residents. This was soon followed by reurbanization and gentrification, leading to renewed population growth in the 2010s. Also in the 2010s, much of Amsterdam's population growth was due to immigration to the city. |
Amsterdam | Diversity and immigration | Diversity and immigration
In the 16th and 17th centuries, non-Dutch immigrants to Amsterdam were mostly Protestant Huguenots and Flemings, Sephardic Jews, and Westphalians. Huguenots came after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, while the Flemish Protestants came during the Eighty Years' War against Catholic Spain. The Westphalians came to Amsterdam mostly for economic reasons; their influx continued through the 18th and 19th centuries. Before the Second World War, 10% of the city population was Jewish. Just twenty percent of them survived the Holocaust.
Amsterdam experienced an influx of religions and cultures after the Second World War. With 180 different nationalities,Onderzoek, Informatie en Statistiek , Gemeente Amsterdam Amsterdam is home to one of the widest varieties of nationalities of any city in the world.Quest, issue of March 2009 The proportion of the population of immigrant origin in the city proper is about 50% and 88% of the population are Dutch citizens.
The first mass immigration in the 20th century was by people from Indonesia, who came to Amsterdam after the independence of the Dutch East Indies in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s guest workers from Turkey, Morocco, Italy, and Spain immigrated to Amsterdam. After the independence of Suriname in 1975, a large wave of Surinamese settled in Amsterdam, mostly in the Bijlmer area. Other immigrants, including refugees asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants, came from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, many 'old' Amsterdammers moved to 'new' cities like Almere and Purmerend, prompted by the third Land-use planning bill of the Dutch Government. This bill promoted suburbanization and arranged for new developments in so-called "groeikernen", literally cores of growth. Young professionals and artists moved into neighborhoods De Pijp and the Jordaan abandoned by these Amsterdammers. The non-Western immigrants settled mostly in the social housing projects in Amsterdam-West and the Bijlmer.
In 2006, people of non-Western origin made up approximately one-fifth of the population of Amsterdam, and more than 30% of the city's children. A slight majority of the residents of Amsterdam have at least one parent who was born outside the country. However, a much larger majority has at least one parent who was born inside the country (intercultural marriages are common in the city). Only a third of inhabitants under 15 are autochthons (person with two parents of Dutch origin). In 2023, autochthons were a minority in 40% of Amsterdam's neighborhoods. Segregation along ethnic lines is visible, with people of non-Western origin, considered a separate group by Statistics Netherlands, concentrating in specific neighborhoods especially in Nieuw-West, Zeeburg, Bijlmer and in certain areas of Amsterdam-Noord.
In 2000, Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (28% of the population). The next largest religion was Islam (8%), most of whose followers were Sunni. In 2015, Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (28% of the population). The next largest religion was Islam (7.1%), most of whose followers were Sunni. Amsterdam has been one of the municipalities in the Netherlands that provided immigrants with extensive and free Dutch-language courses, which have benefited many immigrants.
OriginBackground group1996200020052010201520202024Numbers%Numbers%Numbers%Numbers%Numbers%Numbers%Numbers%Dutch natives419,86358.5%406,72755.6%384,15551.7%384,48050%402,10548.9%387,77544.43%375,84240.4%Western migration background94,95513.2%97 23213.3%104,45214.1%114,73014.9%134,52416.4%170 16419.5%––18 47517 45117 07017 09917 68819 37421,1797 8177 9279 3159 84111 46315 33817,0284 0154 7855 8916 5407 87211 58214,6963 5093 6894 1484 9727 06211 46214,4273 0383 4564 0584 9456 3799 31611,972Non-Western migration background203,30128.3%227 32931.1%254,17634.2%268,24735%285,12334.7%314,81836.07%––47 72354 72264 38569 43374 25477,2108.85%79,15769 09571 21870 38068 93866 63864,2187.36%62 17430 86433 70537 95740 36542 37544,4655.09%46 82028 48928 03726 90026 43626 09124,0752.76%23,242 Dutch Antilles and Aruba10 00311 12211 50011 70712 14112,1741.39%12 8336 8598 57410 16710 94411 88411 88413 8646771 1799911 0711 4921 7142 0101 0272 1132 5362 6262 7013 0803 352Non-Dutch migration background298,25641.5%324,56144.4%358,62848.3%382,97750%419,64751.9%484,98255.6%555,45659.6%Total718,119100%731,288100%742,783100%767,457100%821,752100%872,757100%931,298100% |
Amsterdam | Religion | Religion
In 1578, the largely Catholic city of Amsterdam joined the revolt against Spanish rule, late in comparison to other major northern Dutch cities. Catholic priests were driven out of the city. Following the Dutch takeover, all churches were converted to Protestant worship. Calvinism was declared the main religion. It was forbidden to openly profess Roman Catholicism and the Catholic hierarchy was prohibited until the mid-19th century. This led to the establishment of clandestine churches, covert religious buildings hidden in pre-existing buildings. Catholics, some Jews, and dissenting Protestants worshipped in such buildings. A large influx of foreigners of many religions came to 17th-century Amsterdam, in particular Sefardic Jews from Spain and Portugal, Huguenots from France, Lutherans, Mennonites, as well as Protestants from across the Netherlands. This led to the establishment of many non-Dutch-speaking churches. In 1603, the Jewish received permission to practice their religion in the city. In 1639, the first synagogue was consecrated. The Jews came to call the town "Jerusalem of the West".
As they became established in the city, other Christian denominations used converted Catholic chapels to conduct their own services. The oldest English-language church congregation in the world outside the United Kingdom is found at the Begijnhof. Regular services there are still offered in English under the auspices of the Church of Scotland. Being Calvinists, the Huguenots soon integrated into the Dutch Reformed Church, though often retaining their own congregations. Some, commonly referred to by the moniker 'Walloon', are recognizable today as they offer occasional services in French.
In the second half of the 17th century, Amsterdam experienced an influx of Ashkenazim, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. Jews often fled the pogroms in those areas. The first Ashkenazis who arrived in Amsterdam were refugees from the Khmelnytsky uprising occurring in Ukraine and the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of Central Europe. They not only founded their own synagogues but had a strong influence on the 'Amsterdam dialect' adding a large Yiddish local vocabulary. Despite an absence of an official Jewish ghetto, most Jews preferred to live in the eastern part, which used to be the centre of medieval Amsterdam. The main street of this Jewish neighbourhood was Jodenbreestraat. The neighbourhood comprised the Waterlooplein and the Nieuwmarkt. Buildings in this neighbourhood fell into disrepair after the Second World War a large section of the neighbourhood was demolished during the construction of the metro system. This led to riots, and as a result, the original plans for large-scale reconstruction were abandoned by the government. The neighbourhood was rebuilt with smaller-scale residence buildings based on its original layout.
thumb|The Westerkerk in the Centrum borough, one of Amsterdam's best-known churches
Catholic churches in Amsterdam have been constructed since the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853. Translated in One of the principal architects behind the city's Catholic churches, Cuypers, was also responsible for the Amsterdam Centraal station and the .
In 1924, the Catholic Church hosted the International Eucharistic Congress in Amsterdam; numerous Catholic prelates visited the city, where festivities were held in churches and stadiums. Catholic processions on the public streets, however, were still forbidden under law at the time. Only in the 20th century was Amsterdam's relation to Catholicism normalised, but despite its far larger population size, the episcopal see of the city was placed in the provincial town of Haarlem.
Historically, Amsterdam has been predominantly Christian. In 1900 Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (70% of the population), Dutch Reformed Church formed 45% of the city population, and the Catholic Church formed 25% of the city population. In recent times, religious demographics in Amsterdam have been changed by immigration from former colonies. Hinduism has been introduced from the Hindu diaspora from Suriname and several distinct branches of Islam have been brought from various parts of the world. Islam is now the largest non-Christian religion in Amsterdam. The large community of Ghanaian immigrants has established African churches, often in parking garages in the Bijlmer area. |
Amsterdam | Cityscape and architecture | Cityscape and architecture
thumb|800px|center|
upright=1.5|thumb|A 1538 painting by Cornelis Anthonisz showing a bird's-eye view of Amsterdam. The famous Grachtengordel had not yet been established.
Amsterdam fans out south from the Amsterdam Centraal station and Damrak, the main street off the station. The oldest area of the town is known as De Wallen (English: "The Quays"). It lies to the east of Damrak and contains the city's famous red-light district. To the south of De Wallen is the old Jewish quarter of Waterlooplein.
The medieval and colonial age canals of Amsterdam, known as grachten, embraces the heart of the city where homes have interesting gables. Beyond the Grachtengordel are the former working-class areas of Jordaan and de Pijp. The Museumplein with the city's major museums, the Vondelpark, a 19th-century park named after the Dutch writer Joost van den Vondel, as well as the Plantage neighbourhood, with the zoo, are also located outside the Grachtengordel.
Several parts of the city and the surrounding urban area are polders. This can be recognised by the suffix -meer which means lake, as in Aalsmeer, Bijlmermeer, Haarlemmermeer and Watergraafsmeer. |
Amsterdam | Canals | Canals
left|thumb|Rokin – November 1977
The Amsterdam canal system is the result of conscious city planning. In the early 17th century, when immigration was at a peak, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay. Known as the Grachtengordel, three of the canals were mostly for residential development: the Herengracht (where "Heren" refers to Heren Regeerders van de stad Amsterdam, ruling lords of Amsterdam, while gracht means canal, so that the name can be roughly translated as "Canal of the Lords"), Keizersgracht (Emperor's Canal) and Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal). The fourth and outermost canal is the Singelgracht, which is often not mentioned on maps because it is a collective name for all canals in the outer ring. The Singelgracht should not be confused with the oldest and innermost canal, the Singel.
thumb|Herengracht
thumb|Prinsengracht
The canals served for defense, water management and transport. The defenses took the form of a moat and earthen dikes, with gates at transit points, but otherwise no masonry superstructures. The original plans have been lost, so historians, such as Ed Taverne, need to speculate on the original intentions: it is thought that the considerations of the layout were purely practical and defensive rather than ornamental.
Construction started in 1613 and proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it – and not from the centre outwards, as a popular myth has it. The canal construction in the southern sector was completed by 1656. Subsequently, the construction of residential buildings proceeded slowly. The eastern part of the concentric canal plan, covering the area between the Amstel River and the IJ Bay, has never been implemented. In the following centuries, the land was used for parks, senior citizens' homes, theatres, other public facilities, and waterways without much planning. Over the years, several canals have been filled in, becoming streets or squares, such as the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and the Spui. |
Amsterdam | Expansion | Expansion
left|thumb|The Egelantiersgracht lies west of the Grachtengordel, in the Jordaan neighbourhood.
After the development of Amsterdam's canals in the 17th century, the city did not grow beyond its borders for two centuries. During the 19th century, Samuel Sarphati devised a plan based on the grandeur of Paris and London at that time. The plan envisaged the construction of new houses, public buildings, and streets just outside the Grachtengordel. The main aim of the plan, however, was to improve public health. Although the plan did not expand the city, it did produce some of the largest public buildings to date, like the Paleis voor Volksvlijt.
Following Sarphati, civil engineers Jacobus van Niftrik and Jan Kalff designed an entire ring of 19th-century neighbourhoods surrounding the city's centre, with the city preserving the ownership of all land outside the 17th-century limit, thus firmly controlling development. Most of these neighbourhoods became home to the working class.
In response to overcrowding, two plans were designed at the beginning of the 20th century which were very different from anything Amsterdam had ever seen before: Plan Zuid (designed by the architect Berlage) and West. These plans involved the development of new neighbourhoods consisting of housing blocks for all social classes.
After the Second World War, large new neighbourhoods were built in the western, southeastern, and northern parts of the city. These new neighbourhoods were built to relieve the city's shortage of living space and give people affordable houses with modern conveniences. The neighbourhoods consisted mainly of large housing blocks located among green spaces, connected to wide roads, making the neighbourhoods easily accessible by motor car. The western suburbs which were built in that period are collectively called the Westelijke Tuinsteden. The area to the southeast of the city built during the same period is known as the Bijlmer. |
Amsterdam | Architecture | Architecture
thumb|left|The Royal Palace of Amsterdam, by architects Jacob van Campen and Daniël Stalpaert is characteristic of the architecture of the Dutch Baroque architecture.
Amsterdam has a rich architectural history. The oldest building in Amsterdam is the Oude Kerk (English: Old Church), at the heart of the Wallen, consecrated in 1306. The oldest wooden building is Het Houten Huys at the Begijnhof. It was constructed around 1425 and is one of only two existing wooden buildings. It is also one of the few examples of Gothic architecture in Amsterdam. The oldest stone building in the Netherlands, The Moriaan is built in 's-Hertogenbosch.
In the 16th century, wooden buildings were razed and replaced with brick ones. During this period, many buildings were constructed in the architectural style of the Renaissance. Buildings of this period are very recognisable with their stepped gable façades, which is the common Dutch Renaissance style. Amsterdam quickly developed its own Renaissance architecture. These buildings were built according to the principles of the architect Hendrick de Keyser. One of the most striking buildings designed by Hendrick de Keyser is the Westerkerk. In the 17th century baroque architecture became very popular, as it was elsewhere in Europe. This roughly coincided with Amsterdam's Golden Age. The leading architects of this style in Amsterdam were Jacob van Campen, Philips Vingboons and Daniel Stalpaert.
thumb|right|The Begijnhof is one of the oldest hofjes in Amsterdam.
thumb|right|The Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam and Conservatorium van Amsterdam, two examples of 21st-century architecture in the centre of the city
Philip Vingboons designed splendid merchants' houses throughout the city. A famous building in baroque style in Amsterdam is the Royal Palace on Dam Square. Throughout the 18th century, Amsterdam was heavily influenced by French culture. This is reflected in the architecture of that period. Around 1815, architects broke with the baroque style and started building in different neo-styles. Most Gothic style buildings date from that era and are therefore said to be built in a neo-gothic style. At the end of the 19th century, the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau style became popular and many new buildings were constructed in this architectural style. Since Amsterdam expanded rapidly during this period, new buildings adjacent to the city centre were also built in this style. The houses in the vicinity of the Museum Square in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid are an example of Jugendstil. The last style that was popular in Amsterdam before the modern era was Art Deco. Amsterdam had its own version of the style, which was called the Amsterdamse School. Whole districts were built in this style, such as the Rivierenbuurt. A notable feature of the façades of buildings designed in Amsterdamse School is that they are highly decorated and ornate, with oddly shaped windows and doors.
The old city centre is the focal point of all the architectural styles before the end of the 19th century. Jugendstil and Georgian are mostly found outside the city centre in the neighbourhoods built in the early 20th century, although there are also some striking examples of these styles in the city centre. Most historic buildings in the city centre and nearby are houses, such as the famous merchants' houses lining the canals. |
Amsterdam | Parks and recreational areas | Parks and recreational areas
thumb|
Amsterdam has many parks, open spaces, and squares throughout the city. The Vondelpark, the largest park in the city, is located in the Oud-Zuid neighbourhood and is named after the 17th-century Amsterdam author Joost van den Vondel. Yearly, the park has around 10 million visitors. In the park is an open-air theatre, a playground, and several horeca facilities. In the Zuid borough, is the Beatrixpark, named after Queen Beatrix. Between Amsterdam and Amstelveen is the Amsterdamse Bos ("Amsterdam Forest"), the largest recreational area in Amsterdam. Annually, almost 4.5 million people visit the park, which has a size of and is approximately three times the size of Central Park.Amsterdamse Bos – English site . City of Amsterdam. Retrieved on 27 November 2008. The Amstelpark in the Zuid borough houses the Rieker windmill, which dates to 1636. Other parks include the Sarphatipark in the De Pijp neighbourhood, the Oosterpark in the Oost borough and the Westerpark in the Westerpark neighbourhood. The city has three beaches: Nemo Beach, Citybeach "Het stenen hoofd" (Silodam), and Blijburg, all located in the Centrum borough.
The city has many open squares (plein in Dutch). The namesake of the city as the site of the original dam, Dam Square, is the main city square and has the Royal Palace and National Monument. Museumplein hosts various museums, including the , Van Gogh Museum, and Stedelijk Museum. Other squares include Rembrandtplein, Muntplein, Nieuwmarkt, Leidseplein, Spui and Waterlooplein. Also, near Amsterdam is the Nekkeveld estate conservation project. |
Amsterdam | Economy | Economy
thumb|left|250px|The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world
thumb|left|250px|The Zuidas, the city's main business district
Amsterdam is the financial and business capital of the Netherlands.
According to the 2007 European Cities Monitor (ECM) – an annual location survey of Europe's leading companies carried out by global real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield – Amsterdam is one of the top European cities in which to locate an international business, ranking fifth in the survey. with the survey determining London, Paris, Frankfurt and Barcelona as the four European cities surpassing Amsterdam in this regard.
A substantial number of large corporations and banks' headquarters are located in the Amsterdam area, including: AkzoNobel, Heineken International, ING Group, ABN AMRO, TomTom, Delta Lloyd Group, Booking.com and Philips. Although many small offices remain along the historic canals, centrally based companies have increasingly relocated outside Amsterdam's city centre. Consequently, the Zuidas (English: South Axis) has become the new financial and legal hub of Amsterdam, with the country's five largest law firms and several subsidiaries of large consulting firms, such as Boston Consulting Group and Accenture, as well as the World Trade Centre (Amsterdam) located in the Zuidas district. In addition to the Zuidas, there are three smaller financial districts in Amsterdam:
around Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station. Where one can find the offices of several newspapers, such as De Telegraaf. as well as those of Deloitte, the Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (municipal public transport company), and the Dutch tax offices (Belastingdienst);
around the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam Zuidoost, with the headquarters of ING Group;
around the Amstel railway station in the Amsterdam-Oost district to the east of the historical city. Amsterdam's tallest building, the Rembrandt Tower, is located here. As are the headquarters of Philips, the Dutch multinational conglomerate. Amsterdam has been a leading city to reduce the use of raw materials and has created a plan to become a circular city by 2050.
The adjoining municipality of Amstelveen is the location of KPMG International's global headquarters. Other non-Dutch companies have chosen to settle in communities surrounding Amsterdam since they allow freehold property ownership, whereas Amsterdam retains ground rent.
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX), now part of Euronext, is the world's oldest stock exchange and, due to Brexit, has overtaken LSE as the largest bourse in Europe. It is near Dam Square in the city centre. |
Amsterdam | Port of Amsterdam | Port of Amsterdam
The Port of Amsterdam is the fourth-largest port in Europe, the 38th largest port in the world, and the second-largest port in the Netherlands by metric tons of cargo. In 2014, the Port of Amsterdam had a cargo throughput of 97,4 million tons of cargo, which was mostly bulk cargo. Amsterdam has the biggest cruise port in the Netherlands with more than 150 cruise ships every year. In 2019, the new lock in IJmuiden opened; since then, the port has been able to grow to 125 million tonnes in capacity. |
Amsterdam | Tourism | Tourism
thumb|Boats give tours of the city, such as this one in front of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands.
thumb|Spiegelgracht
Amsterdam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 5.34 million international visitors annually; this is excluding the 16 million day-trippers visiting the city every year. The number of visitors has been growing steadily over the past decade. This can be attributed to an increasing number of European visitors. Two-thirds of the hotels are located in the city's centre. Hotels with four or five stars contribute 42% of the total beds available and 41% of the overnight stays in Amsterdam. The room occupation rate was 85% in 2017, up from 78% in 2006. The majority of tourists (74%) originate from Europe. The largest group of non-European visitors come from the United States, accounting for 14% of the total. Certain years have a theme in Amsterdam to attract extra tourists. For example, the year 2006 was designated "Rembrandt 400", to celebrate the 400th birthday of Rembrandt van Rijn. Some hotels offer special arrangements or activities during these years. The average number of guests per year staying at the four campsites around the city ranges from 12,000 to 65,000.
In 2023, the city began running a campaign to dissuade British men between the ages of 18 and 35 from coming to the city as tourists. The ad shows young men being handcuffed by police and is part of a new campaign to clean up the city's reputation. On 25 May 2023, in a bid to crackdown on wild tourist behaviour, the city banned weed smoking in public areas in and around the red light district. |
Amsterdam | De Wallen (red-light district) | De Wallen (red-light district)
thumb|right|De Wallen, Amsterdam's Red-light district, offers activities such as legal prostitution and a number of coffee shops that sell cannabis. It is one of the main tourist attractions.
De Wallen, also known as Walletjes or Rosse Buurt, is a designated area for legalised prostitution and is Amsterdam's largest and best-known red-light district. This neighbourhood has become a famous attraction for tourists. It consists of a network of canals, streets, and alleys containing several hundred small, one-room apartments rented by sex workers who offer their services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights. In recent years, the city government has been closing and repurposing the famous red-light district windows to clean up the area and reduce the amount of party and sex tourism. |
Amsterdam | Retail | Retail
Shops in Amsterdam range from large high-end department stores such as founded in 1870 to small specialty shops. Amsterdam's high-end shops are found in the streets P.C. Hooftstraat and Cornelis Schuytstraat, which are located in the vicinity of the Vondelpark. One of Amsterdam's busiest high streets is the narrow, medieval Kalverstraat in the heart of the city. Other shopping areas include the Negen Straatjes and Haarlemmerdijk and Haarlemmerstraat. Negen Straatjes are nine narrow streets within the Grachtengordel, the concentric canal system of Amsterdam. The Negen Straatjes differ from other shopping districts with the presence of a large diversity of privately owned shops. The Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk were voted the best shopping street in the Netherlands in 2011. These streets have as the Negen Straatjes a large diversity of privately owned shops. However, as the Negen Straatjes is dominated by fashion stores, the Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk offer a wide variety of stores, just to name some specialties: candy and other food-related stores, lingerie, sneakers, wedding clothing, interior shops, books, Italian deli's, racing and mountain bikes, skatewear, etc.
The city also features a large number of open-air markets such as the Albert Cuyp Market, Westerstraat-markt, Ten Katemarkt, and Dappermarkt. Some of these markets are held daily, like the Albert Cuypmarkt and the Dappermarkt. Others, like the Westerstraatmarkt, are held every week. |
Amsterdam | Fashion | Fashion
thumb|An Amsterdammer waits for a traffic light to change at the Muntplein in the heart of Amsterdam.
Several fashion brands and designers are based in Amsterdam. Fashion designers include Iris van Herpen, Mart Visser, Viktor & Rolf, Marlies Dekkers and Frans Molenaar. Fashion models like Yfke Sturm, Doutzen Kroes and Kim Noorda started their careers in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has its garment centre in the World Fashion Center. Fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin were born in Amsterdam. |
Amsterdam | Culture | Culture
thumb|The houses Rembrandt's The Night Watch.
thumb|The Van Gogh Museum houses the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and letters.
thumb|The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is an international museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design.
During the later part of the 16th century, Amsterdam's Rederijkerskamer (Chamber of rhetoric) organised contests between different Chambers in the reading of poetry and drama. In 1637, Schouwburg, the first theatre in Amsterdam was built, opening on 3 January 1638. The first ballet performances in the Netherlands were given in Schouwburg in 1642 with the Ballet of the Five Senses. In the 18th century, French theatre became popular. While Amsterdam was under the influence of German music in the 19th century there were few national opera productions; the Hollandse Opera of Amsterdam was built in 1888 for the specific purpose of promoting Dutch opera. In the 19th century, popular culture was centred on the Nes area in Amsterdam (mainly vaudeville and music-hall). An improved metronome was invented in 1812 by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel. The (1885) and Stedelijk Museum (1895) were built and opened. In 1888, the Concertgebouworkest orchestra was established. With the 20th century came cinema, radio and television. Though most studios are located in Hilversum and Aalsmeer, Amsterdam's influence on programming is very strong. Many people who work in the television industry live in Amsterdam. Also, the headquarters of the Dutch SBS Broadcasting Group is located in Amsterdam. |
Amsterdam | Museums | Museums
The most important museums of Amsterdam are located on the Museumplein (Museum Square), located at the southwestern side of the Rijksmuseum. It was created in the last quarter of the 19th century on the grounds of the former World's fair. The northeastern part of the square is bordered by the large Rijksmuseum. In front of the Rijksmuseum on the square itself is a long, rectangular pond. This is transformed into an ice rink in winter. The northwestern part of the square is bordered by the Van Gogh Museum, House of Bols Cocktail & Genever Experience and Coster Diamonds. The southwestern border of the Museum Square is the Van Baerlestraat, which is a major thoroughfare in this part of Amsterdam. The Concertgebouw is located across this street from the square. To the southeast of the square are several large houses, one of which contains the American consulate. A parking garage can be found underneath the square, as well as a supermarket. The Museumplein is covered almost entirely with a lawn, except for the northeastern part of the square which is covered with gravel. The current appearance of the square was realised in 1999 when the square was remodelled. The square itself is the most prominent site in Amsterdam for festivals and outdoor concerts, especially in the summer. Plans were made in 2008 to remodel the square again because many inhabitants of Amsterdam are not happy with its current appearance.
thumb|left|upright=0.8|Rembrandt monument on Rembrandtplein
The possesses the largest and most important collection of classical Dutch art.
It opened in 1885. Its collection consists of nearly one million objects. The artist most associated with Amsterdam is Rembrandt, whose work, and the work of his pupils, is displayed in the Rijksmuseum. Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch is one of the top pieces of art in the museum. It also houses paintings from artists like Bartholomeus van der Helst, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, Ferdinand Bol, Albert Cuyp, Jacob van Ruisdael and Paulus Potter. Aside from paintings, the collection consists of a large variety of decorative art. This ranges from Delftware to giant doll-houses from the 17th century. The architect of the gothic revival building was P.J.H. Cuypers. The museum underwent a 10-year, 375 million euro renovation starting in 2003. The full collection was reopened to the public on 13 April 2013 and the Rijksmuseum has remained the most visited museum in Amsterdam with 2.2 million visitors in 2016 and 2.16 million in 2017.
Van Gogh lived in Amsterdam for a short while and there is a museum dedicated to his work. The museum is housed in one of the few modern buildings in this area of Amsterdam. The building was designed by Gerrit Rietveld. This building is where the permanent collection is displayed. A new building was added to the museum in 1999. This building, known as the performance wing, was designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. Its purpose is to house temporary exhibitions of the museum. Some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, like The Potato Eaters and Sunflowers, are in the collection. The Van Gogh museum is the second most visited museum in Amsterdam, not far behind the Rijksmuseum in terms of the number of visits, being approximately 2.1 million in 2016, for example.
thumb|right|Het Scheepvaartmuseum
Next to the Van Gogh Museum stands the Stedelijk Museum. This is Amsterdam's most important museum of modern art. The museum is as old as the square it borders and was opened in 1895. The permanent collection consists of works of art from artists like Piet Mondrian, Karel Appel, and Kazimir Malevich. After renovations lasting several years, the museum opened in September 2012 with a new composite extension that has been called 'The Bathtub' due to its resemblance to one.
Amsterdam contains many other museums throughout the city. They range from small museums such as the Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum), the Anne Frank House, and the Rembrandt House Museum, to the very large, like the Tropenmuseum (Museum of the Tropics), Amsterdam Museum (formerly known as Amsterdam Historical Museum), H'ART Museum and the Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum). The modern-styled Nemo is dedicated to child-friendly science exhibitions. |
Amsterdam | Music | Music
thumb|Coldplay performing at the Amsterdam Arena, 2016
Amsterdam's musical culture includes a large collection of songs that treat the city nostalgically and lovingly. The 1949 song "Aan de Amsterdamse grachten" ("On the canals of Amsterdam") was performed and recorded by many artists, including John Kraaijkamp Sr.; the best-known version is probably that by Wim Sonneveld (1962). In the 1950s Johnny Jordaan rose to fame with "Geef mij maar Amsterdam" ("I prefer Amsterdam"), which praises the city above all others (explicitly Paris); Jordaan sang especially about his own neighbourhood, the Jordaan ("Bij ons in de Jordaan"). Colleagues and contemporaries of Johnny include Tante Leen and Manke Nelis. Another notable Amsterdam song is "Amsterdam" by Jacques Brel (1964). A 2011 poll by Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool that Trio Bier's "Oude Wolf" was voted "Amsterdams lijflied". Notable Amsterdam bands from the modern era include the Osdorp Posse and the Ex.
AFAS Live (formerly known as the Heineken Music Hall) is a concert hall located near the Johan Cruyff Arena (known as the Amsterdam Arena until 2018). Its main purpose is to serve as a podium for pop concerts for big audiences. Many famous international artists have performed there. Two other notable venues, Paradiso and the are located near the Leidseplein. Both focus on broad programming, ranging from indie rock to hip-hop, R&B, and other popular genres. Other subcultural music venues are OCCII, OT301, De Nieuwe Anita, Winston Kingdom, and Zaal 100. Jazz has a strong following in Amsterdam, with the Bimhuis being the premier venue. In 2012, Ziggo Dome was opened, also near Amsterdam Arena, a state-of-the-art indoor music arena.
AFAS Live is also host to many electronic dance music festivals, alongside many other venues. Armin van Buuren and Tiesto, some of the world's leading Trance DJs hail from the Netherlands and frequently perform in Amsterdam. Each year in October, the city hosts the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) which is one of the leading electronic music conferences and one of the biggest club festivals for electronic music in the world, attracting over 350,000 visitors each year. Another popular dance festival is 5daysoff, which takes place in the venues Paradiso and . In the summertime, there are several big outdoor dance parties in or nearby Amsterdam, such as Awakenings, Dance Valley, Mystery Land, Loveland, A Day at the Park, Welcome to the Future, and Valtifest.
thumb|The or Royal Concert Hall houses performances of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and other musical events.
Amsterdam has a world-class symphony orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Their home is the , which is across the Van Baerlestraat from the Museum Square. It is considered by critics to be a concert hall with some of the best acoustics in the world. The building contains three halls, Grote Zaal, Kleine Zaal, and Spiegelzaal. Some nine hundred concerts and other events per year take place in the Concertgebouw, for a public of over 700,000, making it one of the most-visited concert halls in the world. The opera house of Amsterdam is located adjacent to the city hall. Therefore, the two buildings combined are often called the Stopera, (a word originally coined by protesters against its very construction: Stop the Opera[-house]). This huge modern complex, opened in 1986, lies in the former Jewish neighbourhood at Waterlooplein next to the river Amstel. The Stopera is the home base of Dutch National Opera, Dutch National Ballet and the Holland Symfonia. Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a concert hall, which is located in the IJ near the central station. Its concerts perform mostly modern classical music. Located adjacent to it, is the Bimhuis, a concert hall for improvised and jazz music. |
Amsterdam | Performing arts | Performing arts
Amsterdam has three main theatre buildings.
thumb|Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam's best-known theatre
thumb|Royal Theater Carré, It was originally meant as a permanent circus building.
The Stadsschouwburg at the Leidseplein is the home base of Toneelgroep Amsterdam. The current building dates from 1894. Most plays are performed in the Grote Zaal (Great Hall). The normal program of events encompasses all sorts of theatrical forms. In 2009, the new hall of the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, and Melkweg opened, and the renovation of the front end of the theatre was ready.
The Dutch National Opera and Ballet (formerly known as Het Muziektheater), dating from 1986, is the principal opera house and home to Dutch National Opera and Dutch National Ballet. Royal Theatre Carré was built as a permanent circus theatre in 1887 and is currently mainly used for musicals, cabaret performances, and pop concerts.
The recently re-opened DeLaMar Theater houses more commercial plays and musicals. A new theatre has also moved into the Amsterdam scene in 2014, joining other established venues: Theater Amsterdam is located in the west part of Amsterdam, on the Danzigerkade. It is housed in a modern building with a panoramic view over the harbour. The theatre is the first-ever purpose-built venue to showcase a single play entitled ANNE, the play based on Anne Frank's life.
On the east side of town, there is a small theatre in a converted bathhouse, the Badhuistheater. The theatre often has English programming.
The Netherlands has a tradition of cabaret or kleinkunst, which combines music, storytelling, commentary, theatre, and comedy. Cabaret dates back to the 1930s and artists like Wim Kan, Wim Sonneveld, and Toon Hermans were pioneers of this form of art in the Netherlands. In Amsterdam are the Kleinkunstacademie (English: Cabaret Academy) and Nederlied Kleinkunstkoor (English: Cabaret Choir). Contemporary popular artists are Youp van 't Hek, Freek de Jonge, Herman Finkers, Hans Teeuwen, Theo Maassen, Herman van Veen, Najib Amhali, Raoul Heertje, Jörgen Raymann, Brigitte Kaandorp and Comedytrain. The English-spoken comedy scene was established with the founding of Boom Chicago in 1993. They have their own theatre at Leidseplein. |
Amsterdam | Nightlife | Nightlife
Amsterdam is famous for its vibrant and diverse nightlife. Amsterdam has many cafés (bars). They range from large and modern to small and cosy. The typical Bruine Kroeg (brown café) breathes a more old-fashioned atmosphere with dimmed lights, candles, and somewhat older clientele. These brown cafés mostly offer a wide range of local and international artisanal beers. Most cafés have terraces in summertime. A common sight on the Leidseplein during summer is a square full of terraces packed with people drinking beer or wine. Many restaurants can be found in Amsterdam as well. Since Amsterdam is a multicultural city, a lot of different ethnic restaurants can be found. Restaurants range from being rather luxurious and expensive to being ordinary and affordable. Amsterdam also possesses many discothèques. The two main nightlife areas for tourists are the Leidseplein and the Rembrandtplein. The Paradiso, and Sugar Factory are cultural centres, which turn into discothèques on some nights. |
Amsterdam | Festivals | Festivals
In 2008, there were 140 festivals and events in Amsterdam. During the same year, Amsterdam was designated as the World Book Capital for one year by UNESCO.
Famous festivals and events in Amsterdam include: Koningsdag (which was named Koninginnedag until the crowning of King Willem-Alexander in 2013) (King's Day – Queen's Day); the Holland Festival for the performing arts; the yearly Prinsengrachtconcert (classical concerto on the Prinsen canal) in August; the 'Stille Omgang' (a silent Roman Catholic evening procession held every March); Amsterdam Gay Pride; The Cannabis Cup; and the Uitmarkt. On Koningsdag—which is held each year on 27 April—hundreds of thousands of people travel to Amsterdam to celebrate with the city's residents. The entire city becomes overcrowded with people buying products from the free market, or visiting one of the many music concerts.
thumb|right|One of the decorated boats participating in the 2013 Canal Parade of the Amsterdam Gay Pride
The yearly Holland Festival attracts international artists and visitors from all over Europe. Amsterdam Gay Pride is a yearly local LGBT parade of boats in Amsterdam's canals, held on the first Saturday in August. The annual Uitmarkt is a three-day cultural event at the start of the cultural season in late August. It offers previews of many different artists, such as musicians and poets, who perform on podia. |
Amsterdam | Sports | Sports
Amsterdam is home of the Eredivisie football club AFC Ajax. The stadium Johan Cruyff Arena is the home of Ajax. It is located in the south-east of the city next to the new Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA railway station. Before moving to their current location in 1996, Ajax played their regular matches in the now demolished De Meer Stadion in the eastern part of the city or in the Olympic Stadium.
In 1928, Amsterdam hosted the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium built for the occasion has been completely restored and is now used for cultural and sporting events, such as the Amsterdam Marathon. In 1920, Amsterdam assisted in hosting some of the sailing events for the Summer Olympics held in neighbouring Antwerp, Belgium by hosting events at Buiten IJ. They had also made a bid to host the 1952 and 1992 Summer Olympics but lost to Helsinki and Barcelona.
thumb|AFC Ajax player Johan Cruyff, 1967
The city holds the Dam to Dam Run, a race from Amsterdam to Zaandam, as well as the Amsterdam Marathon. The ice hockey team Amstel Tijgers plays in the Jaap Eden ice rink. The team competes in the Dutch Ice Hockey Premier League. Speed skating championships have been held on the 400-meter lane of this ice rink.
Amsterdam holds two American football franchises: the Amsterdam Crusaders and the Amsterdam Panthers. The Amsterdam Pirates baseball team competes in the Dutch Major League. There are three field hockey teams: Amsterdam, Pinoké, and Hurley, who play their matches around the Wagener Stadium in the nearby city of Amstelveen. The basketball team MyGuide Amsterdam competes in the Dutch premier division and play their games in the Sporthallen Zuid.
There is one rugby club in Amsterdam, which also hosts sports training classes such as RTC (Rugby Talenten Centrum or Rugby Talent Centre) and the National Rugby Stadium.
Since 1999, the city of Amsterdam honours the best sportsmen and women at the Amsterdam Sports Awards. Boxer Raymond Joval and field hockey midfielder Carole Thate were the first to receive the awards, in 1999.
Amsterdam hosted the World Gymnaestrada in 1991 and will do so again in 2023. |
Amsterdam | Politics | Politics
thumb|upright=0.9|Femke Halsema has been the Mayor of Amsterdam since 2018.
The city of Amsterdam is a municipality under the Dutch Municipalities Act. It is governed by a directly elected municipal council, a municipal executive, and a mayor. Since 1981, the municipality of Amsterdam has gradually been divided into semi-autonomous boroughs, called stadsdelen or 'districts'. Over time, a total of 15 boroughs were created. In May 2010, under a major reform, the number of Amsterdam boroughs was reduced to eight: Amsterdam-Centrum covering the city centre including the canal belt, Amsterdam-Noord consisting of the neighbourhoods north of the IJ lake, Amsterdam-Oost in the east, Amsterdam-Zuid in the south, Amsterdam-West in the west, Amsterdam Nieuw-West in the far west, Amsterdam Zuidoost in the southeast, and Westpoort covering the Port of Amsterdam area. |
Amsterdam | City government | City government
As with all Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is governed by a directly elected municipal council, a municipal executive and a government appointed mayor (burgemeester). The mayor is a member of the municipal executive board but also has individual responsibilities in maintaining public order. On 27 June 2018, Femke Halsema (former member of House of Representatives for GroenLinks from 1998 to 2011) was appointed as the first woman to be Mayor of Amsterdam by the King's Commissioner of North Holland for a six-year term after being nominated by the Amsterdam municipal council and began serving a six-year term on 12 July 2018. She replaces Eberhard van der Laan (Labour Party) who was the Mayor of Amsterdam from 2010 until his death in October 2017. After the 2014 municipal council elections, a governing majority of D66, VVD and SP was formed – the first coalition without the Labour Party since World War II. Next to the Mayor, the municipal executive consists of eight wethouders ('alderpersons') appointed by the municipal council: four D66 alderpersons, two VVD alderpersons and two SP alderpersons.
On 18 September 2017, it was announced by Eberhard van der Laan in an open letter to Amsterdam citizens that Kajsa Ollongren would take up his office as acting Mayor of Amsterdam with immediate effect due to ill health. Ollongren was succeeded as acting Mayor by Eric van der Burg on 26 October 2017 and by Jozias van Aartsen on 4 December 2017.
thumb|upright=1.15|Boroughs of Amsterdam until 24 March 2022
Unlike most other Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is subdivided into seven boroughs, called stadsdelen or 'districts', and the urban area of Weesp. This system was gradually implemented in the 1980s to improve local governance. The boroughs are responsible for many activities that had previously been run by the central city. In 2010, the number of Amsterdam boroughs reached fifteen. Fourteen of those had their own district council (deelraad), elected by a popular vote. The fifteenth, Westpoort, covers the harbour of Amsterdam and has very few residents. Therefore, it was governed by the central municipal council.
Under the borough system, municipal decisions are made at the borough level, except for those affairs on the whole city such as major infrastructure projects, which are the jurisdiction of the central municipal authorities. In 2010, the borough system was restructured, in which many smaller boroughs merged into larger boroughs. In 2014, under a reform of the Dutch Municipalities Act, the Amsterdam boroughs lost much of their autonomous status, as their district councils were abolished.
The municipal council of Amsterdam voted to maintain the borough system by replacing the district councils with smaller, but still directly elected district committees (bestuurscommissies). Under a municipal ordinance, the new district committees were granted responsibilities through the delegation of regulatory and executive powers by the central municipal council.
thumb|800px|center| |
Amsterdam | Metropolitan area | Metropolitan area
thumb|Police headquarters of Amsterdam
"Amsterdam" is usually understood to refer to the municipality of Amsterdam. Colloquially, some areas within the municipality, such as the town of Durgerdam, may not be considered part of Amsterdam.
Statistics Netherlands uses three other definitions of Amsterdam: metropolitan agglomeration Amsterdam (Grootstedelijke Agglomeratie Amsterdam, not to be confused with Grootstedelijk Gebied Amsterdam, a synonym of Groot Amsterdam), Greater Amsterdam (Groot Amsterdam, a COROP region) and the urban region Amsterdam (Stadsgewest Amsterdam). The Amsterdam Department for Research and Statistics uses a fourth conurbation, namely the Stadsregio Amsterdam ('City Region of Amsterdam'). The city region is similar to Greater Amsterdam but includes the municipalities of Zaanstad and Wormerland.
The smallest of these areas is the municipality of Amsterdam with a population of about 870,000 in 2021. The larger conurbation had a population of over one million. It includes the municipalities of Zaanstad, Wormerland, Oostzaan, Diemen, and Amstelveen only, as well as the municipality of Amsterdam. Greater Amsterdam includes 15 municipalities and had a population of 1,400,000 in 2021. Though much larger in area, the population of this area is only slightly larger, because the definition excludes the relatively populous municipality of Zaanstad. The largest area by population, the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (Dutch: Metropoolregio Amsterdam), has a population of 2,33 million. It includes for instance Zaanstad, Wormerland, Muiden, Abcoude, Haarlem, Almere and Lelystad but excludes Graft-De Rijp. Amsterdam is part of the conglomerate metropolitan area Randstad, with a total population of 6,659,300 inhabitants.
Of these various metropolitan area configurations, only the Stadsregio Amsterdam (City Region of Amsterdam) has a formal governmental status. Its responsibilities include regional spatial planning and metropolitan public transport concessions. |
Amsterdam | National capital | National capital
thumb|King Willem-Alexander, Princess Beatrix, and Queen Máxima greeting Amsterdammers from the Royal Palace of Amsterdam during Willem-Alexanders inauguration in 2013
Under the Dutch Constitution, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Since the 1983 constitutional revision, the constitution mentions "Amsterdam" and "capital" in chapter 2, article 32: The king's confirmation by oath and his coronation take place in "the capital Amsterdam" ("de hoofdstad Amsterdam"). Previous versions of the constitution only mentioned "the city of Amsterdam" ("de stad Amsterdam"). For a royal investiture, therefore, the States General of the Netherlands (the Dutch Parliament) meets for a ceremonial joint session in Amsterdam. The ceremony traditionally takes place at the Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square, immediately after the former monarch has signed the act of abdication at the nearby Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Normally, however, the Parliament sits in The Hague, the city which has historically been the seat of the Dutch government, the Dutch monarchy, and the Dutch supreme court. Foreign embassies are also located in The Hague. |
Amsterdam | Symbols | Symbols
The coat of arms of Amsterdam is composed of several historical elements. First and centre are three St Andrew's crosses, aligned in a vertical band on the city's shield (although Amsterdam's patron saint was Saint Nicholas). These St Andrew's crosses can also be found on the city shields of neighbours Amstelveen and Ouder-Amstel. This part of the coat of arms is the basis of the flag of Amsterdam, flown by the city government, but also as civil ensign for ships registered in Amsterdam. Second is the Imperial Crown of Austria. In 1489, out of gratitude for services and loans, Maximilian I awarded Amsterdam the right to adorn its coat of arms with the king's crown. Then, in 1508, this was replaced with Maximilian's imperial crown when he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In the early years of the 17th century, Maximilian's crown in Amsterdam's coat of arms was again replaced, this time with the crown of Emperor Rudolph II, a crown that became the Imperial Crown of Austria. The lions date from the late 16th century, when the city and province became part of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Last came the city's official motto: Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig ("Heroic, Determined, Merciful"), bestowed on the city in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina, in recognition of the city's bravery during the Second World War. |
Amsterdam | Transport | Transport |
Amsterdam | Metro, tram and bus | Metro, tram and bus
thumb|A tram crossing the Keizersgracht
thumb|The Amsterdam Metro is a mixed subway and above ground rapid transit system consisting of five lines.
Currently, there are sixteen tram routes and five metro routes. All are operated by the municipal public transport operator Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (GVB), which also runs the city bus network.
Four fare-free GVB ferries carry pedestrians and cyclists across the IJ lake to the borough of Amsterdam-Noord, and two fare-charging ferries run east and west along the harbour. There are also privately operated water taxis, a water bus, a boat-sharing operation, electric rental boats, and canal cruises, that transport people along Amsterdam's waterways.
Regional buses, and some suburban buses, are operated by Connexxion and EBS. International coach services are provided by Eurolines from Amsterdam Amstel railway station, IDBUS from Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station, and Megabus from the Zuiderzeeweg in the east of the city.
To facilitate easier transport to the centre of Amsterdam, the city has various P+R Locations where people can park their car at an affordable price and transfer to one of the numerous public transport lines. |
Amsterdam | Car | Car
Amsterdam was intended in 1932 to be the hub, a kind of Kilometre Zero, of the highway system of the Netherlands, with freeways numbered One to Eight planned to originate from the city. The outbreak of the Second World War and shifting priorities led to the current situation, where only roads A1, A2, and A4 originate from Amsterdam according to the original plan. The A3 to Rotterdam was cancelled in 1970 to conserve the Groene Hart. Road A8, leading north to Zaandam and the A10 Ringroad were opened between 1968 and 1974. Besides the A1, A2, A4 and A8, several freeways, such as the A7 and A6, carry traffic mainly bound for Amsterdam.
The A10 ringroad surrounding the city connects Amsterdam with the Dutch national network of freeways. Interchanges on the A10 allow cars to enter the city by transferring to one of the 18 city roads, numbered S101 through to S118. These city roads are regional roads without grade separation, and sometimes without a central reservation. Most are accessible by cyclists. The S100 Centrumring is a smaller ring road circumnavigating the city's centre.
In the city centre, driving a car is discouraged. Parking fees are expensive, and many streets are closed to cars or are one-way. The local government sponsors carsharing and carpooling initiatives such as Autodelen and Meerijden.nu. The local government has also started removing parking spaces in the city in 2019, with the goal of removing 10,000 spaces (roughly 1,500 per year) by 2025. |
Amsterdam | National rail | National rail
thumb|upright=1.15|Amsterdam Centraal station, the city's main train station
Amsterdam is served by ten stations of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways). Five are intercity stops: Sloterdijk, Zuid, Amstel, Bijlmer ArenA and Amsterdam Centraal. The stations for local services are: Lelylaan, RAI, Holendrecht, Muiderpoort and Science Park. Amsterdam Centraal is also an international railway station. From the station, there are regular services to destinations such as Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Among these trains are international trains of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen and Deutsche Bahn to Berlin, Eurostar services to Antwerp, Brussels, Paris and London and ICE services to Cologne and Frankfurt. |
Amsterdam | Airport | Airport
thumb|right|Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ranks as Europe's third-busiest airport for passenger traffic.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is less than 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam Centraal station and is served by domestic and international intercity trains, such as Eurostar and EuroCity. Schiphol is the largest airport in the Netherlands, the third-largest in Europe, and the 14th-largest in the world in terms of passengers. It handles over 68 million passengers per year and is the home base of four airlines, KLM, Transavia, Martinair and Arkefly. , Schiphol was the fifth busiest airport in the world measured by international passenger numbers. This airport is 4 meters below sea level. Although Schiphol is internationally known as Amsterdam Schiphol Airport it lies in the neighbouring municipality of Haarlemmermeer, southwest of the city. |
Amsterdam | Cycling | Cycling
thumb|Barges regularly pull bicycles from the bottom of the canals in Amsterdam. Many residents discard old bicycles by throwing them into the canals.
thumb|Police bicyclist crossing a bridge over the Prinsengracht
thumb|Bicyclist at Amsterdam
Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world and is a centre of bicycle culture with good facilities for cyclists such as bike paths and bike racks, and several guarded bike storage garages (fietsenstalling) which can be used.
According to the most recent figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in 2015 the 442,693 households (850,000 residents) in Amsterdam together owned 847,000 bicycles – 1.91 bicycles per household. Theft is widespreadin 2011, about 83,000 bicycles were stolen in Amsterdam. Bicycles are used by all socio-economic groups because of their convenience, Amsterdam's small size, the of bike paths, the flat terrain, and the inconvenience of driving an automobile. |
Amsterdam | Education | Education
thumb|left|The Agnietenkapel Gate at the University of Amsterdam, founded in 1632 as the Athenaeum Illustre
Amsterdam has two universities: the University of Amsterdam (Universiteit van Amsterdam, UvA), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). Other institutions for higher education include an art school – Gerrit Rietveld Academie, a university of applied sciences – the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Amsterdam's International Institute of Social History is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions concerning social history, and especially the history of the labour movement. Amsterdam's Hortus Botanicus, founded in the early 17th century, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, with many old and rare specimens, among them the coffee plant that served as the parent for the entire coffee culture in Central and South America.
There are over 200 primary schools in Amsterdam. Some of these primary schools base their teachings on particular pedagogic theories like the various Montessori schools. The biggest Montessori high school in Amsterdam is the Montessori Lyceum Amsterdam. Many schools, however, are based on religion. This used to be primarily Roman Catholicism and various Protestant denominations, but with the influx of Muslim immigrants, there has been a rise in the number of Islamic schools. Jewish schools can be found in the southern suburbs of Amsterdam.
thumb|right|Barlaeus Gymnasium
Amsterdam is noted for having five independent grammar schools (Dutch: gymnasia), the Vossius Gymnasium, Barlaeus Gymnasium, St. Ignatius Gymnasium, Het 4e Gymnasium and the Cygnus Gymnasium where a classical curriculum including Latin and classical Greek is taught. Though believed until recently by many to be an anachronistic and elitist concept that would soon die out, the gymnasia have recently experienced a revival, leading to the formation of a fourth and fifth grammar school in which the three aforementioned schools participate. Most secondary schools in Amsterdam offer a variety of different levels of education in the same school. The city also has various colleges ranging from art and design to politics and economics which are mostly also available for students coming from other countries.
Schools for foreign nationals in Amsterdam include the Amsterdam International Community School, British School of Amsterdam, Albert Einstein International School Amsterdam, Lycée Vincent van Gogh La Haye-Amsterdam primary campus (French school), International School of Amsterdam, and the Japanese School of Amsterdam. |
Amsterdam | Notable people | Notable people |
Amsterdam | Media | Media
Amsterdam is a prominent centre for national and international media. Some locally based newspapers include Het Parool, a national daily paper; De Telegraaf, the largest Dutch daily newspaper; the daily newspapers Trouw, de Volkskrant and NRC; De Groene Amsterdammer, a weekly newspaper; the free newspapers Metro and The Holland Times (printed in English).
Amsterdam is home to the second-largest Dutch commercial TV group SBS Broadcasting Group, consisting of TV stations SBS 6, Net 5, and Veronica. However, Amsterdam is not considered 'the media city of the Netherlands'. The town of Hilversum, south-east of Amsterdam, has been crowned with this unofficial title. Hilversum is the principal centre for radio and television broadcasting in the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands, heard worldwide via shortwave radio since the 1920s, is also based there. Hilversum is home to an extensive complex of audio and television studios belonging to the national broadcast production company NOS, as well as to the studios and offices of all the Dutch public broadcasting organisations and many commercial TV production companies.
In 2012, the music video for "Live My Life" by Far East Movement was filmed in various parts of Amsterdam.
Several movies have been filmed in Amsterdam, including the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, Ocean's Twelve, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken, Layer Cake and The Hitman's Bodyguard. Amsterdam is also featured in John Green's book The Fault in Our Stars, which was made into a film that also partly takes place in Amsterdam. |
Amsterdam | Housing | Housing
From the late 1960s onwards many buildings in Amsterdam have been squatted both for housing and for use as social centres. A number of these squats have legalised and become well known, such as OCCII, OT301, Paradiso and Vrankrijk. |
Amsterdam | Sister cities | Sister cities
Manchester, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, 2007
Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, 2011 |
Amsterdam | See also | See also
List of populated places in the Netherlands
List of cities, towns and villages in North Holland
List of cities in the Netherlands by province
List of national capitals
List of national capitals by latitude
List of capital cities by elevation
List of national capitals by population
van Dam |
Amsterdam | Notes | Notes |
Amsterdam | References | References |
Amsterdam | Sources | Sources
Charles Caspers & Peter Jan Margry (2017), Het Mirakel van Amsterdam. Biografie van een betwiste devotie (Amsterdam, Prometheus). |
Amsterdam | Further reading | Further reading
de Waard, M., ed. Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2013.
Feddes, Fred. A Millennium of Amsterdam: Spatial History of a Marvelous City. Bussum: Thoth 2012.
Jonker, Joost. Merchants, Bankers, Middlemen: The Amsterdam Money Market during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 1996
Shorto, Russell. Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City. New York: Vintage Books 2014. |
Amsterdam | External links | External links
Amsterdam.nl – Official government site
I amsterdam – Portal for international visitors
Tourist information about Amsterdam () – website of the Netherlands
Category:Capitals in Europe
Category:Cities in the Netherlands
Category:Municipalities of North Holland
Category:Olympic cycling venues
Category:Populated places established in the 13th century
Category:Populated places in North Holland
Category:Port cities and towns in the Netherlands
Category:Port cities and towns of the North Sea
Category:Venues of the 1928 Summer Olympics
Category:Populated lakeshore places in the Netherlands |
Amsterdam | Table of Content | Short description, History, Prehistory, Founding, Middle Ages, Conflict with Spain, Centre of the Dutch Golden Age, Decline and modernization, 20th century – present, Geography, Water, Climate, Demographics, Historical population, Diversity and immigration, Religion, Cityscape and architecture, Canals, Expansion, Architecture, Parks and recreational areas, Economy, Port of Amsterdam, Tourism, De Wallen (red-light district), Retail, Fashion, Culture, Museums, Music, Performing arts, Nightlife, Festivals, Sports, Politics, City government, Metropolitan area, National capital, Symbols, Transport, Metro, tram and bus, Car, National rail, Airport, Cycling, Education, Notable people, Media, Housing, Sister cities, See also, Notes, References, Sources, Further reading, External links |
Museum of Work | Short description | thumb|200px|Styrkjärn in central Norrköping
The Museum of Work (Arbetets museum) is a museum located in Norrköping, Sweden. The museum is located in the Strykjärn (Clothes iron), a former weaving mill in the old industrial area on the Motala ström river in the city centre of Norrköping. The former textile factory Holmens Bruk (sv) operated in the building from 1917 to 1962.
The museum documents work and everyday life by collecting personal stories about people's professional lives from both the past and the present. The museum's archive contain material from memory collections and documentation projects.
Since 2009, the museum also houses the EWK – Center for Political Illustration Art, which is based on work of the satirist Ewert Karlsson (1918–2004). For decades he was frequently published in the Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet. |
Museum of Work | Overview | Overview
The museum is a national central museum with the task of preserving and telling about work and everyday life. It has, among other things, exhibitions on the terms and conditions of the work and the history of the industrial society. The museum is also known to highlight gender perspective in their exhibitions.
The work museum documents work and everyday life by collecting personal stories, including people's professional life from both the past and present.Vi samlar på berättelser – Forskning & bibliotek, hämtat 2013-10-23 In the museum's archive, there is a rich material of memory collections and documentation projects – over 2600 interviews, stories and photodocumentations have been collected since the museum opened.
The museum is also a support for the country's approximately 1,500 working life museums that are old workplaces preserved to convey their history. |
Museum of Work | Exhibitions | Exhibitions
The Museum of Work shows exhibitions going on over several years, but also shorter exhibitions – including several photo exhibitions on themes that can be linked to work and everyday life. |
Museum of Work | The history of Alva | The history of Alva
The history of Alva Karlsson is the only exhibition in the museum that is permanent. The exhibition connects to the museum's building and its history as part of the textile industry in Norrköping. Alva worked as a rollers between the years 1927 – 1962. |
Museum of Work | Industriland | Industriland
One of the museum long-term exhibitions is Industriland – when Sweden became modern,Industriland – när Sverige blev modernt, hämtat 2013-10-23 the exhibition was in 2007–2013 and consisted of an ongoing bond with various objects that were somehow significant both for working life and everyday during the period 1930–1980. The exhibition also consisted of presentations of the working life museums in Sweden and a number of rooms with themes such as: leisure, world, living and consumption. |
Museum of Work | Framtidsland (Future country) | Framtidsland (Future country)
In 2014, the exhibition was inaugurated that takes by where Industriland ends: Future country. It is an exhibition that investigates what a sustainable society is will be part of the museum's exhibitions until 2019. The exhibition consists of materials that are designed based on conversations between young people and researchers around Sweden. The exhibition addresses themes such as work, environment and everyday life. A tour version of the exhibition is given in the locations Falun, Kristianstad and Örebro. |
Museum of Work | EWK – The Center for Political Illustration Art | EWK – The Center for Political Illustration Art
Since 2009, the Museum also houses EWK – center for political illustration art. The museum preserves, develops and conveys the political illustrator Ewert Karlsson's production. The museum also holds theme exhibitions with national and international political illustrators with the aim of highlighting and strengthening the political art.Om EWK-museet på Arbetets museums webbplats |
Museum of Work | See also | See also
List of museums in Sweden
Culture of Sweden |
Museum of Work | References | References |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.