Amsterdam | History, Population, Map, Climate, & Facts (2024)

The city layout

Amsterdam is situated in a flat and low-lying area mainly on the south bank of the IJ, an inland arm of the former Zuiderzee, now the IJsselmeer, connected by canal with the North Sea. The Amstel River flows from south to north through the city toward the IJ. Parts of the city lie below sea level, some of them on land that has been reclaimed from the sea or from marshes or lakes.

City development

The current Dutch capital first took shape as a small medieval settlement on dikes containing the Amstel where it met the IJ. The Amstel was dammed to control flooding, and the city’s name derives from the Amstel dam. By the 16th century Amsterdam had grown into a walled city centred on the present Dam, bounded approximately by what are now the Singel and the Kloveniersburgwal canals. Three towers of the old fortifications still stand. Outside the Singel are the three main canals dating from the early 17th century: the Herengracht (Gentlemen’s Canal), Keizersgracht (Emperor’s Canal), and Prinsengracht (Prince’s Canal). These concentric canals, together with the smaller radial canals, form a characteristic spiderweb pattern, which was extended east along the harbour and west into the district known as the Jordaan during the prosperous Golden Age (the 17th and early 18th centuries).

The old part of Amsterdam has many ancient buildings, most notably the Old Church (Oude Kerk), built in the 13th century, and the New Church (Nieuwe Kerk), begun in the 15th century. Next to the New Church is the 17th-century city hall, now the Royal Palace, built in classical Palladian style. Other significant buildings include the Mint Tower (Munttoren), with a 17th-century spire resting on a medieval gate; the South Church (Zuiderkerk, 1611); the West Church (Westerkerk, 1631), where Rembrandt is buried; the Trippenhuis, housing the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; and the Old Man’s House Gate (Oudemanhuispoort), now the entrance to one of the University of Amsterdam’s main buildings. The former Jewish quarter, in the eastern portion of the old town, is the location of the Portuguese Synagogue (1671) and the Rembrandt House (Rembrandthuis), which is now a museum. The old town’s three main squares are the Dam, the Leidseplein (Leiden Square), and the Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square). Fine 17th- and 18th-century patrician houses line the canals.

Major physical change came again to the cityscape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the booming colonial trade fueled industrialization and the expansion of the city’s population. For example, new inexpensive residential, commercial, and industrial construction filled De Pijp, a neighbourhood in the southern part of the city, and workers crowded into the older buildings of the Jordaan in the west. The North Sea Canal, a major new channel running west to the sea, was completed in 1876; new docks and warehouses developed along the waterfront; and in 1889 the city’s new rail hub, Central Station, was built on an artificial island in the IJ north of the city centre. In the early 20th century new suburbs were built, several in the Amsterdam school of architectural style; their imaginative, asymmetrical motifs broke up the monotony associated with suburban public housing units. Sint Nicolaas Church (1886), the Beurs (Stock Exchange; 1903), and the Shipping House (1916) date from this period, as do the Rijksmuseum (1876–85), the Concertgebouw (Concert Hall; 1888), the Stedelijk Museum (1895), the Olympic Stadium (1928), and the Amstel Station (1939).

Amsterdam suffered less damage than many other European cities during World War II, but the old Jewish quarter was razed. After the war, urban renewal programs and large-scale new housing estates attempted to accommodate increasing population, rising incomes, and the inexorable growth in automobile traffic. New garden suburbs included Slotermeer on the western edge of the city, Nieuwendam in the north, Buitenveldert in the south, and, in the 1970s, Bijlmermeer in the southeast. Bijlmermeer was the ultimate in modernist utopian urban planning, with bicycle paths, playgrounds, and high-rises built along the city’s new metro line. However, it was not a success and was later partly demolished and redeveloped in a mix of building styles for a variety of uses. Since the 1970s, low-rise mixed housing projects have been the vogue, including both public housing and private-sector dwellings. Recent developments of this kind have been built in Sloten and the Middelveldsche Akerpolder in the west, while in the east, in the old harbour district, intense housing construction began in the 1990s. During the last decades of the 20th century, inner-city areas were increasingly renovated rather than replaced.