Amsterdam is the Capitale Netherlands (although the seat of the government is with $the Hague) and more the big city of the province of septentrional Holland and of the Netherlands. The agglomeration counts approximately 2 300 000 inhabitants (called From Amsterdam or Amstellodamiens), itself started from a Conurbation called Randstad Holland and which counts 7 100 000 inhabitants. The oldest part of the city is built around a semicircular canal system.
It is in Amsterdam that the house of Anne Frank is. In the center of the city, one finds on the Prejudice (the dam) the old town hall (17th century), which is since the reign of the king Louis Bonaparte (1806-1810) until our days the royal palace. Part of the east city re-elected for its `hot district' - of Wallen - and its many coffee shops which markets the Cannabis with special license. Out of the center one finds in the district of the museums the Rijksmuseum, the Communal Museum and the Van Gogh Museum. The scientific Musée NEMO is other with dimensions of the city, on the edges of the IJ.
At the 16th century the war against the Spain burst which was to lead to the independence of the Netherlands. Initially favorable to the Spaniards, Amsterdam changed camp into 1578. It resulted from it the return from the religious liberty, a very skilful operation for the time. The wars of religion devastated the Europe then, and many were those which sought a refuge where they would not be condemned for their beliefs. This situation attracted in the rich person Netherlands Portuguese Jewish families and Spanish, of the traders of Antwerp who fled the destruction and the racket of the Spanish army, as of the Huguenot S of France which came to the Netherlands in the hope from being able there to practice their religion. Among the refugees there were scientific men like Comenius and the philosophers Descartes and Spinoza. Amsterdam did not attach importance to the religion of its inhabitants, as long as those agreed to pay their taxes and to take part in the economic life. The income per capita of the city in 1685 was four times superior with that of Paris and the gap widens with the arrival of Huguenots.
The 17th century was the golden age of Amsterdam. It is at that time that she saw flowering the maritime trade with the Indonesia, the Brésil and the Africa; it is also at that time that Rembrandt lived and that one built the famous channels of the city. Amsterdam became most important then port of the world and an international money market.
The XVIII {{E}} and the 19th century transfer the decline of the prosperity of the city. The wars against the France and the England weakened it and destroyed the trade with the Great Britain. But at the end of the XIXe century, the Industrial revolution gave a new breath to Amsterdam, following the creation of new bonds between the channels and the sea and with the boring of a new channel until the the Rhine, which made it possible to facilitate the communications within Europe, but also towards the whole world. Nevertheless, Amsterdam never managed to recover its supremacy of formerly. The First World War had only little influence on Amsterdam, being given the neutrality of the Netherlands in this conflict; the trade and industry suffered from it nevertheless. At the time of the Second world war, on the other hand, approximately 100.000 Jews of Amsterdam were off-set, almost reducing to nothing the Jewish community of the city.
The Years 1960 and 1970 brought back Amsterdam to the foreground of the topicality, not for commercial economic reasons or, but following the tolerance of the city towards the use of the soft drugs, which made of it a town of predilection for the generation Hippie. But the riots and the confrontations with the police force multiplied, and of many squatters illegal last being expelled by the force… In 1980, whereas the queen Beatrix lent oath, at the time of its accession to the throne, the protesters faced the police force outside the church…
Currently (2002), Amsterdam found peace.
The zoo of Amsterdam, called Artis , holds its name of the royal Company of zoology " Natura Artis Magistra" (" Nature is main of Art"). It is one of oldest world (the principal building goes back to 1838), with that of London (1828). Located in full downtown area, it offers a contrast seizing with surrounding urban agitation. It comprises an aquarium (built in 1882), museums zoological and geological, a planetarium as well as a library.
As almost all the city, channels included/understood, is under the sea level, the buildings old or modern are posed on piles which are pressed on more or less deep layers of sand.
The city of XVIIe and the XVIIIe century, almost entirely preserved, composes the most beautiful model of old town planning which one knows in the north of Europe.
The city was based in the vases of a marsh. The greatest part was built at the Century of gold, along new concentric channels. Until the XIXe century, the city opened on its port and the Zuiderzee, of which it was separated by construction from the large central station, posed on 26 000 piles. The pinions of different forms sign architectures of each time.
How to read the age of the pinions?
The Amsterdam Admirals, as for them, are the team of American football capital and the only American football club in the Netherlands.
One can also announce the very good team of hockey, the Amstel Tijgers Amsterdam and the Demon Astronauts, the team of Basket-ball of the city.
Formerly large seaport to leave towards the Eastern or Western Indies, today capital of romantic tourism, Amsterdam saw its warehouses gorged with colonial goods to transform itself into historic buildings. The tables hung in the commercial rich person residences joined the museums. Threatened by the vicinity of the giant port of Rotterdam, Amsterdam reacted by modernizing its decayed installations of old colonial port. Connected to the North Sea by a cut channel of locks, it is on a level lower by two meters than the spring tides.
The common of Amsterdam is consisted of the following centers: Amsterdam (city), Amsterdam Zuidoost, Buiksloot, Driemond, Durgerdam, Holysloot, Nieuwendam, 'T Nopeind, Oud Osdorp, Ransdorp, Ruigoord, Schellingwoude, Het Schouw, Sloten, Sloterdijk, Zunderdorp.
The commune is member of the community of communes Stadsregio Amsterdam gathering the communes around Amsterdam.
It is bordering on the communes of Diemen, Weesp, Abcoude, Ouder-Amstel and Amstelveen in the south, Haarlemmermeer and Haarlemmerliede in Spaarnwoude in the west, Zaanstad, Oostzaan, Landsmeer and Waterland in north.
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