Amsterdam , ; (; ) is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands. As of 1 January 2026, it had a population of 941,873 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; Nikolaeva, Anna. "The human infrastructure of a cycling city: Amsterdam through the eyes of international newcomers", Urban Geography 42.3 (2021): 289–311.Feddes, Fred; de Lange, Marjolein; te Brömmelstroet, Marco. "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 in Amsterdam or have established their European headquarters there, such as technology companies Uber, Netflix, and Tesla. Although Amsterdam is the official capital of the Netherlands, it is not the seat of government. The main governmental institutions, and foreign embassies, are located in The Hague.
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 fourth-largest in Europe. The KLM hub and Amsterdam's main airport, Schiphol, is the busiest airport in the Netherlands, and 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 John Amos Comenius, and Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank.
History
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 the 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, for during this period the river mouth and the banks of the Amstel were too wet for permanent habitation., pp. 62–63.
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.
Middle Ages 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".
War with Spanish Empire
The Low Countries were part of the Habsburg inheritance and came under the Spanish Empire 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.
Centre of the Dutch Golden Age
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.