A report on Amsterdam

The Oude Kerk was consecrated in 1306 AD.

Amsterdam citizens celebrating the Peace of Münster, 30 January 1648. Painting by Bartholomeus van der Helst

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.

View of Vijzelstraat looking towards the Muntplein, 1891

Photochrom of Amsterdam's Dam Square at the beginning of the 20th century

People celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands at the end of World War II on 8 May 1945

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.

Satellite picture of Amsterdam and North Sea Canal

Large-scale map of the city centre of Amsterdam, including sightseeing markers,.

Nieuwendammerdijk en Buiksloterdijk, Amsterdam-Noord, winter 2010

The Westerkerk in the Centrum borough, one of Amsterdam's best-known churches

A 1538 painting by Cornelis Anthonisz showing a bird's-eye view of Amsterdam. The famous Grachtengordel had not yet been established.

The Egelantiersgracht lies west of the Grachtengordel, in the Jordaan neighbourhood.

The Scheepvaarthuis, by architects Johan van der Mey, Michel de Klerk, Piet Kramer is characteristic of the architecture of the Amsterdam School.

The Begijnhof is one of the oldest hofjes in Amsterdam.

The Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam and Conservatorium van Amsterdam, two examples of 21st-century architecture in the centre of the city

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world

The Zuidas, the city's main business district

Boats give tours of the city, such as this one in front of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands.

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.

An Amsterdammer waits for a traffic light to change at the Muntplein in the heart of Amsterdam.

The Rijksmuseum houses Rembrandt's The Night Watch.

The Van Gogh Museum houses the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and letters.

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is an international museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design.

Coldplay performing at the Amsterdam Arena, 2016

The Concertgebouw or Royal Concert Hall houses performances of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and other musical events.

Stadsschouwburg, Amsterdam's best-known theatre

One of the decorated boats participating in the 2013 Canal Parade of the Amsterdam Gay Pride

Femke Halsema has been the Mayor of Amsterdam since 2018.

King Willem-Alexander, Princess Beatrix, and Queen Máxima greeting Amsterdammers from the Royal Palace of Amsterdam during Willem-Alexanders inauguration in 2013

The Amsterdam Metro is a mixed subway and above ground rapid transit system consisting of five lines.

Amsterdam Centraal station, the city's main train station

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol ranks as Europe's third-busiest airport for passenger traffic.

Police bicyclist crossing a bridge over the Prinsengracht

Capital and most populous city of the Netherlands; with a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area.

- Amsterdam

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Kalverstraat

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The Kalverstraat is a busy shopping street of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands.

I Amsterdam symbol with the Rijksmuseum in the background.

List of tourist attractions in Amsterdam

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Amsterdam Heritage City view from Lookout

Amsterdam, one of Europe's capitals, has many attractions for visitors.

Leiden

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City and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands.

Relief of Leiden (1574), painting by Otto van Veen. Inundated meadows allow the Dutch fleet access to the Spanish infantry positions.

17th-century houses along the Herengracht

The 1852 Sijthoff printing office, Leiden

The Singel at night, showing the chimney of the Light Factory

Leiden grew twelve-fold in size between 1896 and 1981, annexing land from neighboring municipalities.

The 1860 Leiden Observatory, after restoration (2013)

William II, Count of Holland in the Lakenhal

Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 km from The Hague to its south and some 40 km from Amsterdam to its north.

Van Gogh Museum

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Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw.

The Painter of Sunflowers, a portrayal of Vincent van Gogh painting sunflowers by Paul Gauguin, 1888

The collection was inherited by her son Vincent Willem van Gogh in 1925, eventually loaned to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it was displayed for many years, and was transferred to the state-initiated Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962.

Concertgebouw

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Organ in the Main Hall of the Concertgebouw

Main Hall (Grote Zaal) of the Concertgebouw

East side before its restoration in 1985

The Royal Concertgebouw (Koninklijk Concertgebouw, ) is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Dutch East India Company

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Chartered company established in 1602, when the States General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia.

The "United East India Company", or "United East Indies Company" (also known by the abbreviation "VOC" in Dutch) was the brainchild of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the leading statesman of the Dutch Republic.

Replica of the VOC ship Duyfken under sail

Founded in 1602, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), started off as a spice trader. In the same year, the VOC undertook the world's first recorded IPO. "Going public" enabled the company to raise the vast sum of 6.5 million guilders quickly. The VOC's institutional innovations and business practices laid the foundations for the rise of modern-day global corporations and capital markets that now dominate the world's economic systems.

In terms of creating and sustaining an effective corporate identity (or corporate culture), the United East India Company (VOC) was a successful early pioneer at the dawn of modern capitalism.

17th century plaque to Dutch East India Company (VOC), Hoorn

Return of the second Asia expedition of Jacob van Neck in 1599 by Cornelis Vroom

Mughal Bengal's baghlah was a type of ship widely used by Dutch traders in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea

Reproduction of a map of the city of Batavia c.1627, collection Tropenmuseum

Dutch Batavia in 1681, built in what is now North Jakarta

The Isle of Amboina, a 17th-century print, probably English

Graves of Dutch dignitaries in the ruined St. Paul's Church, Malacca, in the former Dutch Malacca

Dutch East India Company factory in Hugli-Chuchura, Mughal Bengal. Hendrik van Schuylenburgh, 1665

Eustachius De Lannoy of the Dutch East India Company surrenders to Maharaja Marthanda Varma of the Indian Kingdom of Travancore after the Battle of Colachel. (Depiction at Padmanabhapuram Palace)

The Oost-Indisch Huis (Reinier Vinkeles, 1768)

A bond from the Dutch East India Company (VOC), dating from 7 November 1623. The VOC was the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public. It was the VOC that invented the idea of investing in the company rather than in a specific venture governed by the company. The VOC was also the first company to use a fully-fledged capital market (including the bond market and the stock market) as a crucial channel to raise medium-term and long-term funds.

Both sides of a duit, a coin minted in 1735 by the VOC

Scale model of Dutch trading post on display in Dejima, Nagasaki (1995)

Ground-plan of the Dutch trade-post on the island Dejima at Nagasaki. An imagined bird's-eye view of Dejima's layout and structures (copied from a woodblock print by Toshimaya Bunjiemon of 1780).

Overview of Fort Zeelandia (Fort Anping) in Tainan, Taiwan, painted around 1635 (National Bureau of Archives, The Hague)

The Dutch Square in Malacca, with Christ Church (centre) and the Stadthuys (right)

Gateway to the Castle of Good Hope, a bastion fort built by the VOC in the 17th century

One of the oldest known stock certificates, issued by the VOC Chamber of Enkhuizen, dated 9 September 1606. The VOC was the first recorded joint-stock company to get a fixed capital stock. The VOC was also the first publicly listed company ever to pay regular dividends. The VOC was possibly in fact the first ever blue-chip stock. In Robert Shiller's words, the VOC was "the first real important stock" in the history of finance.

A 17th-century engraving depicting the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Amsterdam's old bourse, a.k.a. Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser in Dutch), built by Hendrick de Keyser (c. 1612). The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser), launched by the Dutch East India Company in the early 1600s, was the world's first official (formal) stock exchange when it began trading the VOC's freely transferable securities, including bonds and shares of stock.

Courtyard of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser) by Emanuel de Witte, 1653. The process of buying and selling the VOC's shares, on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, became the basis of the world's first official (formal) stock market, a milestone in the history of capitalism.

Crowd gathering on Wall Street (New York City) after the 1929 crash. The 1929 Wall Street Crash is often considered one of the worst stock market crashes in history. For better or worse, the VOC-created quasi-casino stock market system has profoundly influenced the evolution of the global economy since the Dutch Golden Age.

The Dam Square in Amsterdam, by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde, c. 1660. In the picture of the centre of highly cosmopolitan and tolerant Amsterdam, Muslim/Oriental figures (possibly Ottoman or Moroccan merchants) are shown negotiating. While the VOC was a major force behind the economic miracle of the Dutch Republic in the 17th-century, the VOC's institutional innovations played a decisive role in the rise of Amsterdam as the first modern model of a (global) international financial centre.

The shipyard of the United East India Company (VOC) in Amsterdam (1726 engraving by Joseph Mulder). The shipbuilding district of Zaan, near Amsterdam, became one of the world's earliest known industrialized areas, with around 900 wind-powered sawmills at the end of the 17th century. By the early seventeenth century Dutch shipyards were producing a large number of ships to a standard design, allowing extensive division of labour, a specialization which further reduced unit costs.

Jan Vermeer's View of Delft (ca. 1660–61). During the Dutch Golden Age, the VOC significantly influenced Delft's economy, both directly and indirectly.

A replica of the VOC's Halve Maen (captained by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic) passes modern-day lower Manhattan, where the original ship would have sailed while investigating New York harbor

In the Age of Sail, the Brouwer Route, devised by VOC navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, greatly reduced the voyage between Cape of Good Hope (Dutch Cape Colony) to Java (Dutch East Indies) from almost 12 months to about 6 months, compared to the previous Arab and Portuguese monsoon route. The Brouwer Route played a major role in the European discovery of the west coast of Australia.

A typical map from the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. Australasia during the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (c. 1590s–1720s): including Nova Guinea (New Guinea), Nova Hollandia (mainland Australia), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and Nova Zeelandia (New Zealand).

Australia (Nova Hollandia) was the last human-inhabited continent to be explored and mapped (by non-natives). The Dutch were the first to undisputedly explore and map Australia's coastline. In the 17th century, the VOC's navigators and explorers charted almost three-quarters of the Australian coastline, except the east coast.

Detail from a 1657 map by Jan Janssonius, showing the western coastline of Nova Zeelandia

The VOC's economic activity in Mauritius largely contributed to the extinction of the dodo, a flightless bird that was endemic to the island. The first recorded mention of the dodo was by Dutch navigators in the late 1590s.

Natives of Arakan sell slaves to the Dutch East India Company, c.1663 CE.

Charles Davidson Bell's 19th-century painting of Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of Cape Town, arriving in Table Bay in 1652

The statue of Willem de Vlamingh with the Hartog Plate, Vlieland

Monument to the "Tsar-Carpenter" Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great) in St. Petersburg, Russia. In order to learn more about the 17th-century Dutch maritime power, Tsar Peter I came to work incognito as a ship's carpenter at the VOC's shipyards in Amsterdam and Zaandam/Saardam, for a period of four months (1697).

The Flying Dutchman by Albert Pinkham Ryder, c. 1887 (Smithsonian American Art Museum). The legend of the Flying Dutchman is likely to have originated from the 17th-century golden age of the VOC.

Cape Dutch style-influenced eclectic building of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in Swellendam. The Cape Dutch architecture, along with Afrikaans language and Afrikaans literature, is among the lasting legacy of the VOC-era Afrikaans culture in South Africa.

Black, green, pink, and white peppercorns. In terms of spice trade, the VOC was an early pioneering model of the global supply chain in its modern sense. Dutch word "peperduur" – which literally translated as "pepper expensive" or "as expensive as pepper" – is an expression for something that is very costly.

VOC Trade Cloth, 1675–1725, with Mughal tent hanging / summer carpet motif. Made in India for the Indonesian market. Fine textiles from India were a popular luxury import into Indonesia, and some still survive as treasured heirlooms.

The arrival of King Charles II of England in Rotterdam, 24 May 1660 by Lieve Verschuier. King Charles II of England sailed from Breda to Delft in May 1660 in a yacht owned by the VOC. HMY Mary and HMY Bezan (both were built by the VOC) were given to Charles II, on the restoration of the monarchy, as part of the Dutch Gift.

Johan Nieuhof's An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces (1665).

The cover of the Hortus Malabaricus by Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein.<ref>Manilal, K. S. (1984), 'Hortus Malabaricus and the Ethnoiatrical Knowledge of Ancient Malabar,'. Ancient Science of Life 4(2): 96–99</ref><ref>Manilal, K.S.: Hortus Malabaricus and the Socio-Cultural Heritage of India. (Calicut: Indian Association for Angiosperm Taxonomy, 2012)</ref><ref>Dharmapalan, Biju (2012), 'Hortus Malabaricus: Celebrating the Tricentennial of a Botanic Epic,'. SR 49(10): 26–28</ref><ref>Manilal, K. S. (2005), 'Hortus Malabaricus, a book on the plants of Malabar, and its impact on the religious of Christianity and Hinduism in the 17th century Kerala,'. Indian Journal of Botanical Research 1(1): 13–28</ref>

Title page of Rumphius's Herbarium Amboinense (1741–1750)

Title page of Hortus Cliffortianus (1737). The work was a collaboration between Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) and Georg Dionysius Ehret, financed by George Clifford III, one of the directors of the VOC.

Title page of Musa Cliffortiana (1736), Carl Linnaeus's first botanical monograph.

Carl von Linné (Carl Linnaeus) lived and studied for three years, from 1735 until 1738, in the Dutch Republic – a seminal period in his life and career (see articles Herman Boerhaave, Johannes Burman, Engelbert Kaempfer, Georg Eberhard Rumphius, Carl Peter Thunberg, George Clifford III and Hartekamp). VOC people's scientific contributions had a considerable influence on his work.<ref>Heniger, J.: Hendrik Adriaan van Reed tot Drakestein (1636–1691) and Hortus Malabaricus: A Contribution to the History of Dutch Colonial Botany. (Rotterdam: A.A.Balkema, 1986). Heniger (1986): "Allure by the fame of Dutch botany, the young Linnaeus here spent some years, 1735–1738, to complete his schooling."</ref><ref>Skott, Christina (2010), 'The VOC and Swedish Natural History: The Transmission of Scientific Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century,'; in Siegfried Huigen, Jan L. de Jong & Elmer Kolfin (eds.), The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks. (Brill, 2010), pp. 361–392</ref><ref>Thijsse, Gerard (2018), 'A Contribution to the History of the Herbaria of George Clifford III (1685–1760),'. Archives of Natural History 45(1): 134–148. {{doi|10.3366/anh.2018.0489}}</ref><ref>Barth, Nadine; van Andel, Tinde (2018), 'Paul Hermann's Ceylon Herbarium (1672–1679) at Leiden, the Netherlands,'. Taxon 67(5): 977–988</ref><ref>Jarvis, C.E. (2019), 'Georg Rumphius' Herbarium Amboinense (1741–1750) as a source of information on Indonesian plants for Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778),'. Gardens' Bulletin Singapore 71: 87–107</ref>

Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg was a VOC physician and an apostle of Linnaeus.

$With the support of Governor of the VOC-rule Dutch Cape Colony Ryk Tulbagh, French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille studied the stars of the southern hemisphere from 1750 until 1754 from Cape of Good Hope, when he was said to have observed more than 10,000 stars using a {{convert|0.5|in|mm}} refracting telescope.<ref name="Wisconsin-Madison">{{cite web|url=http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/Lacaille.html|title=Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762)|website=Department of Astronomy. University of Wisconsin-Madison|access-date=1 August 2016}}</ref> were newly created in 1763 by Lacaille appearing in his star catalogue, published in 1756.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/lacaille.htm |title=Lacaille's southern planisphere |author=Ian Ridpath}}</ref>$

Black swans on the shore of the Swan River (Western Australia), with the Perth skyline in the background. The thousand-year-old conclusion "all swans are white" was disproved by the VOC navigator Willem de Vlamingh's 1697 discovery.

Hansken, a young female Asian elephant from Dutch Ceylon, was brought to Amsterdam in 1637, aboard a VOC ship. Rembrandt's Hansken drawing is believed to be an early portrait of one of the first Asian elephants described by science.

$Rembrandt's self-portrait as an oriental potentate with a kris/keris, a Javanese blade weapon from the VOC era (etching, c. 1634). Also, he was one of the first known western printmakers to extensively use (the VOC-imported) Japanese paper. It's important to note that some major figures of Dutch Golden Age art like Rembrandt and Vermeer never went abroad during their lifetime. More than just a for-profit corporation of the early modern world, the VOC was instrumental in 'bringing' the East (Orient) to the West (Occident),<ref>Seneviratne, Nadeera (2010), 'Globalising Hansken: An Elephant in The Netherlands,'; in Leelananda Prematilleke (ed.), Abhinandanamālā: Nandana Chutiwongs Felicitation Volume. (Bangkok: SPAFA Regional Centre of Archaeology and Fine Arts, 2010), pp. 259–273</ref><ref>Kim, Myung-Eun; Bae, Soo-Jeong (2015), 'A research on the exchange of costume culture between Netherlands and Japan through 17th–18th century Dutch East India Company,'. The Korea Society of Costume – Journal of the Korean Society of Costume 65(4): 109–123</ref><ref>Kim, Myung-Eun; Bae, Soo-Jeong (2015), 'A Study on Orientalism in the Paintings of Delft School in 17th Century Netherlands,'. The Korea Society of Costume – Journal of the Korean Society of Costume 65(8): 136–150</ref> <ref>Schrader, Stephanie; et al. (eds.): Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India. (Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2018) {{ISBN|978-1-60606-552-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Rembrandt and the Inspiration of India (catalogue)|url=http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/rembrandt_india/downloads/rembrandt_india_checklist.pdf|access-date=18 October 2019}}</ref> and vice versa.<ref>Sugita, Genpaku: Rangaku Kotohajime: Dawn of Western Science in Japan. Translated from the Japanese by Matsumoto Ryozo and Kiyooka Eiichi. (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1968)</ref><ref>Goodman, Grant K.: Dutch Impact on Japan, 1640–1853. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967)</ref><ref>Nagazumi, Yōko (ed.): Large and Broad: The Dutch Impact on Early Modern Asia. Essays in Honor of Leonard Blussé. (Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 2010)</ref><ref>North, Michael; Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta (eds.): Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014)</ref>$