1.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
2.
Gelderland
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Gelderland is a province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. With a land area of nearly 5,000 km2, it is the largest province of the Netherlands and shares borders with six other provinces, however, both Nijmegen and Apeldoorn are larger cities, Nijmegen being the largest with nearly 170,000 inhabitants. Other major regional centres in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wageningen, Zevenaar, Gelderland had a population of just over two million in 2015. According to the Wichard saga, the city was named by the Lords of Pont who fought and they named the town they founded after the death rattle of the dragon, Gelre. Historically, the dates from states of the Holy Roman Empire. The County of Guelders arose out of the Frankish pagus Hamaland in the 11th century around castles near Roermond, the counts of Gelre acquired the Betuwe and Veluwe regions and, through marriage, the County of Zutphen. Thus the counts of Guelders laid the foundation for a power that, through control of the Rhine, Waal, Meuse. Further enlarged by the acquisition of the city of Nijmegen in the 13th century. After 1379, the duchy was ruled from Jülich and by the counts of Egmond, the duchy resisted Burgundian domination, but William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was forced to cede it to Charles V in 1543, after which it formed part of the Burgundian-Habsburg hereditary lands. The duchy revolted with the rest of the Netherlands against Philip II of Spain, after the deposition of Philip II, its sovereignty was vested in the States of Gelderland, and the princes of Orange were stadtholders. In 1672, the province was occupied by Louis XIV and, in 1713. Part of the Batavian Republic, of Louis Bonaparte’s Kingdom of Holland, during the Second World War, it saw heavy fighting between Allied Paratroopers, British XXX Corps and the German II SS Panzer Corps, at the Battle of Arnhem
3.
Overijssel
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Overijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central-eastern part of the country. The provinces name translates to across the IJssel, from the perspective of the bishopric of Utrecht by which it was held until 1528, the capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede. The province has a population of 1,113,529 inhabitants, Overijssel comprises three regions, Kop van Overijssel in the northwest, Salland in the centre of the province, and Twente in the east. Besides the capital Zwolle, other cities are Almelo, Deventer, Enschede. To the southeast, the surface is mostly sandy, interspersed with small rivers such as the Regge and Dinkel. In the northwest, the geology is dominated by sediments from the Overijsselse Vecht, the northern parts were once covered by veen which separated the dryer and more arable south from Drenthe and which have been exploited as fuel to a large degree. Only small patches survive today (Engbertsdijksvenen near Tubbergen, Witteveen, the extreme northwest is dominated by a system of lakes formed by former peat-mining, the Weerribben, which is a valuable wetland. The highest point in Overijssel is the summit of the Tankenberg, the lowest point is in the Mastenbroek Polder near Kampen at 2 metres below sea level. However, winters tend to be less mild than the rest of the Netherlands, Overijssel was formerly known as Oversticht and also included most of the modern-day province of Drenthe. In 1336, it was part of Guelders, though it was ceded to the Bishopric of Utrecht in 1347. e. The other side of the river IJssel, the people joined with the other Dutch and rebelled against Charles heir Philip II. Overijssel became governed by the most powerful mayors and lords in the province, after a brief occupation by the forces of the Bishop of Münster, Overijssel received a new form of government which granted the stadtholders more power. Widespread resistance against the power throughout the provinces eventually led to the formation of the Batavian Republic in 1795. A centralist government arose and the Netherlands was organised into a series of départements, at first organised into its own département, it was merged with Drenthe in 1798 to form Ouden IJssel, which was renamed Overijssel in 1801. The French annexed the Batavian Republic in 1810, and Overijssel was organised into the new French département of Bouches-de-lYssel, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the kingdom of the Netherlands and the former province of Overijssel were recreated. Overijssel was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II from May 1940 until its liberation in April 1945. The Noordoostpolder, a territory which had been laid dry in 1942, was part of Overijssel from 1962 until 1986. The Kings Commissioner of Overijssel is Ank Bijleveld and she is the chairwoman of the States-Deputed and the States-Provincial of Overijssel
4.
Veluwe
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The Veluwe is a forest-rich ridge of hills in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. The Veluwe features many different landscapes, including woodland, heath, the Veluwe is the largest push moraine complex in the Netherlands, stretching 60 km from north to south, and reaching heights of up to 110 metres. The Veluwe was formed by the Saalian glacial during the Pleistocene epoch, glaciers some 200 metres thick pushed the sand deposits in the Rhine and Maas Delta sideways, creating the hills which now form most of the Veluwe. Because the hills are made of sand, rain water disappears rapidly, originally the Veluwe was surrounded by a string of swamps, heavily populated with game such as deer and wild boar because these areas offered rich vegetation to feed on. Since the 1990s many plans are underway, or have already been implemented and this results in very dry heathland changing into wetland within a span of just a few hundred metres. The Wisselse Veen near the village of Epe, on the northeastern Veluwe, Veluwe derives from Proto-Germanic *falwaz and *awjō. The name corresponds to fallow lands in English and probably was used in opposition to the fertile lands of the Betuwe to the south. There are both coniferous and deciduous forests on the Veluwe, and some 500 different plant species can be found. The region is home to many different species of animals, such as wild boar, several species of deer, several species of snakes, pine martens, foxes. Furthermore, the raven was successfully reintroduced, and the exotic Reevess muntjac. In all, the Veluwe is among the best places in the Netherlands to see wildlife, parts of the Veluwe that have been separated from each other by roads, towns and farmland are being reconnected by returning farmland to nature and creating wildlife crossings over highways. In 2012, nine of these overpasses had been built, each one about 50 metres wide and covered with sand, wildlife corridors connecting the Veluwe to other wildlife areas such as the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands are being developed and further connections to Germany are an option. It is hoped that by doing so the diversity of the wildlife population will increase. The Veluwe is a popular tourist destination, especially for Dutch people wanting to go on a vacation in their own country. Campsites and bungalow parks are the place to stay for most visitors. There are more than 500 of these sites, most located on the outskirts of the natural area. Besides the natural beauty of the area, other tourist attractions include four zoos, over 50 museums including the famous Kröller-Müller art museum, the National Sports Centre Papendal, a large sports complex and Olympic Games training facility is located in the south of the Veluwe near Arnhem
5.
Achterhoek
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The Achterhoek is a region in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Its name is appropriate because the area lies in the easternmost part of Gelderland. The Achterhoek area lies between the rivers IJssel and Oude IJssel, and the borders with the province of Overijssel, the region is predominantly rural, with much open space, forests and farms. The area around the town of Winterswijk is regarded as very beautiful, a well-known beer originates from this region, Grolsch beer was first brewed in Groenlo in 1615. The original language of the Achterhoek is Achterhooks, a variety of Low Saxon, the number of inhabitants whose sole language is Achterhooks has greatly declined over the last 60 years, inhabitants are raised with Dutch at school and the dialect is only spoken at home. Partly due to immigration from outside the Achterhoek region and the effects of national government, many old words have been forgotten and replaced by their Dutch-derived equivalents. The largest towns in the Achterhoek are, Doetinchem, Winterswijk, doesburg and Zutphen are old Hanseatic cities. Both have centres with well-preserved historical buildings
6.
Salland
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Salland is a historical dominion in the west and north of the present Dutch province of Overijssel. Nowadays Salland is usually used to indicate a region corresponding to the part of the former dominion more or less to the west of Twente, Salland is first mentioned during the early Middle Ages. The region is most likely named after the river IJssel, anciently known as Isala, the region may be the original residence of the Salian Franks. Salalant at this time was a made up of the area between Wijhe, Mastenbroek, and Dalfsen, in other words, the region circling Zwolle. In 795, Salalant belonged to a count Wracharius and remained in his family until the 11th century, in 814, mention is made of a Salahom, located where the IJssel empties into to the Sallzee, and of its acquisition by the Lorsch Abbey. Salalant gradually grew to the south as far as the rivers Meppelerdiep and Reest, in 1046 Deventer and its vicinity belonged to the county of Hamaland but was incorporated along with the area between Dalfsen and Gramsbergen into Salland in 1246. In 1336, the bishop pledged over almost all of Overijssel - including Salland - to the count of Guelders, ten years later, the new bishop, Jan van Arkel, was able to retrieve the pledged territories. He also reformed administration by breaking Oversticht into the three sheriffdoms of Twente, Vollenhove, and Salland, geologically, most of Sallands landscape consists of a lowland covered with river sediment. To the east, large moors have been drained to provide pastures and these moors, together with the hilly Holterberg region, were the natural border with Twente. On the Holterberg, stretches of the originally vast heathland have been preserved, in the northwest, reclaimed boglands used for peat digging have resulted in low-lying areas vulnerable to flooding, pre-1932. Salland is an area dominated by a number of rivers and streams. Three of Overijssels major cities, Deventer, Kampen and the capital, Zwolle, lie within Salland. Other places of import include Ommen and Hardenberg, which are quite often described as being in the Vechtstreek or Vechtdal, named after the river, rather than in Salland. The Salland tourism board describes Salland as the land in between the river IJssel and the hills, and agrees thus on a much smaller Salland than the historical dominion of that name, specifically, this regards Holten and Den Ham. Salland Natuurlijk Gastvrij, pages of the Salland Board of Tourism
7.
Oude IJssel
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Oude IJssel, literally old IJssel, or Issel is a river in Germany and the Netherlands approximately 80 km long. It is a tributary of the river IJssel. Oude IJssel means Old IJssel in Dutch, the Oude IJssel was the course of the IJssel until the connection with the Rhine was dug. Since that moment the Rhine became the largest contributor to the flow of the IJssel, various tributaries can sometimes add quite some water to the total flow of the river, for example the Berkel and the Schipbeek. The IJssel river is the branch of the Rhine delta that consumes tributary rivers instead of giving birth to distributary rivers. The latter only happens at the very last part of the river, the Oude IJssel begins near Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It flows southwest until it reaches the Rhine near Wesel. After Isselburg it crosses the border with the Netherlands and enters the province of Gelderland and it flows through Doetinchem and joins the IJssel in Doesburg
8.
Berkel
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The Berkel is a river in the Netherlands and Germany. It is a tributary of the River IJssel. The river rises in Billerbeck, near the German city of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, from there, it flows through the province of Gelderland to join the IJssel at Zutphen after about 110 kilometres. Before the coming of the railway, the Berkel was a shipping route for goods from Münster to Eibergen, Borculo. In the 1950s, the Dutch stretch of the river was channelized to prevent flooding, recently old bends have been reconnected to the straightened lengths of the river. Towns along the course of the Berkel include, in Germany, Billerbeck, Coesfeld, Gescher, Stadtlohn, Vreden in the Netherlands, Eibergen, Borculo, Lochem, Almen, Warnsveld, Zutphen
9.
Arnhem
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Arnhem /ˈɑːrnəm/ or /ˈɑːrnhɛm/ is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located on banks of the rivers Nederrijn and Sint-Jansbeek, which was the source of the citys development. Arnhem had a population of 151,356 in 2014 and is one of the cities of the Netherlands. The municipality is part of the city region Arnhem-Nijmegen, which has a combined 736,500 inhabitants, Arnhem is home to the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen, ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, Netherlands Open Air Museum, Royal Burgers Zoo and National Sports Centre Papendal. The oldest archeological findings of human activity around Arnhem are two firestones of about 70,000 years ago and these come from the stone age, when the Neanderthals lived in this part of Europe. In Schuytgraaf, remnants of a camp from around 5000 BC have been discovered. In Schaarsbergen,12 grave mounds were found from 2400 BC, the earliest settlement in Arnhem dates from 1500 BC, of which traces have been found on the Hoogkamp, where the Van Goyenstraat is currently located. Arnhem arose on the location where the road between Nijmegen and Utrecht/Zutphen split, Seven streams provided the city with water, and only when the flow of the Rhine was changed in 1530, was the city located on the river. Arnhem was first mentioned as such in 893 as Arneym or Arentheym, in 1233 Count Otto II of Guelders from Zutphen, conferred city rights on the town, which had belonged to the abbey of Prüm, settled in, and fortified it. Arnhem entered the Hanseatic League in 1443, in 1473, it was captured by Charles the Bold of Burgundy. In 1514, Charles of Egmond, duke of Guelders, took it from the dukes of Burgundy, in 1543, as capital of the so-called Kwartier van Veluwe it joined the Union of Utrecht during the Eighty years war in 1579. After its capture from the Spanish forces by Dutch and English troops in 1585 the city part of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands. The French occupied the town 1672–74, from 1795 to 1813, it was reoccupied by the French, by both revolutionary and imperial forces. In the early 19th century, the fortifications were almost completely dismantled. The Sabelspoort is the remaining part of the medieval walls. In the 19th century, Arnhem was a resort town famous for its picturesque beauty. It was known as het Haagje van het oosten, mainly because a number of former sugar barons or planters from the Indies settled there. Even now the city is famous for its parks and greenery, the urbanization in the north on hilly terrain is also quite unusual for the Netherlands
10.
Doesburg
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Doesburg is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Gelderland. Doesburg received city rights in 1237 and had a population of 11,447 in 2014, the city is situated on the right bank of river IJssel, at the confluence of river Oude IJssel. The municipality of Doesburg is part of the Arnhem-Nijmegen agglomeration region, Doesburg received city rights in 1237, this was one year later than the neighbouring town of Doetinchem. Because of its position along the Oude IJssel and Gelderse IJssel. The fortification of the city made Doesburg an important economic and administrative city, the Martinikerk, the main church in Doesburg is 94 meters tall. For many reasons, many of which have to do with the IJssel decreasing in depth, Doesburg changed into a sleepy provincial town and so it would remain until after the second world war. The city was protected in 1974, designated as a historic town, as Doesburg was officially a fortified city up to 1923, town extension was not possible. After the second war the city was rapidly extended. In the fifties on the Eastern side of the city the borough Molenveld was built, at south of the Oude IJssel followed in the seventies and eighties the borough Beinum. Recently at south of Beinum the borough Campstede has been built, at the beginning of the 21st century the construction of a new area at the IJsselkade was started with 44 houses and 124 apartments designed by the Italian architect Adolfo Natalini. In 2007, construction of a hotel was started called Noabers, after a few months the hotel went bankrupt, but was taken over and reopened a year later. In the north of Doesburg there are several camp-sites where in the high season 4000 visitors stay each year, also the historical inner city with several museums and many monuments draw thousands of tourists every year. Large tourist attractions are the Main court, the Doesburgse mustard factory and De Waag, on the north side of the city, parallel to N317, lies the company area called Verheullweg. Here the international transport company Rotra and the construction material manufacturer Ubbink are established, to the east of the borough Beinum, along the provincial road N338, are the company areas Beinum-Oost and Beinum-West. Here various small and large ventures were established, among which are the company of gedistilleerd, a houtverwerkende company, a plastic company. Along the Gelderse Ijssel an iron foundry and a call centre have been established, as well as, near the bridge. Doesburgs list of characters and well known icons includes sea hero Jan van Kinsbergen. National politician Agnes Kant was active in politics in Doesburg until 1998
11.
Zutphen
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Zutphen is a town in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. It lies some 30 km north-east of Arnhem, on the Eastern bank of the river IJssel at the point where it is joined by the Berkel, the name Zutphen appears to mean zuid-veen, or in English, south-fen. In 2005, the municipality of Zutphen was merged with the municipality of Warnsveld, the municipality had a population of 47,052 in 2014. About 300 AD a Germanic settlement was the first permanent town on a complex of low river dunes, whereas many such settlements were abandoned in the early Middle Ages, Zutphen on its strategic confluence of IJssel and Berkel stayed. After the incorporation of the IJssel lands in Charlemagnes Francia, Zutphen became a centre of governance under a count. The Normans raided and ravaged it in 882, afterwards a circular fortress was built to protect the budding town against Viking attacks. In the eleventh century Zutphen was a residence for a number of years, a pfalz was built, together with a large chapter church. The counts of Zutphen acquired a lot of power, until the line of counts became extinct in the twelfth century. After the death of her father and her brother, Ermgard, the settlement received town rights between 1191 and 1196, making it one of the oldest towns in the country. This allowed it to govern and have a judicial court. Only Utrecht, and Deventer preceded it in receiving town rights, Zutphen, in turn, became the mother town of several other towns in Guelders, such as Arnhem, Doetinchem, Doesburg, Lochem, Harderwijk, Venlo and Emmerich. It also became part of the Hanseatic League, a group of towns with great wealth, during the 12th century coins were minted in Zutphen by the Counts of Guelders and Zutphen, Henry I and Otto I. Although the city had minting rights for a few centuries this was actively used during four periods, 1478-1480, 1582-1583, 1604–1605. The largest and oldest church of the city is the St. Walburgis church, the present Gothic building contains monuments of the former counts of Zutphen, a fourteenth-century candelabrum, an elaborate copper font, and a monument to the Van Heeckeren family. The chapter-house of library contains a library which includes some valuable manuscripts. It is considered one of only 5 remaining medieval libraries in Europe and its fortifications were dismantled in 1874. In World War II the town was bombed several times by the allied forces because the bridge over the IJssel was vital to support the German troops at Arnhem after the Operation Market Garden, after two weeks of battle the town was liberated on 14 April 1945. After the war a renovation program started, the city center includes many monumental buildings dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, and some even date back to the 13th century such as a retirement home area
12.
Deventer
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Deventer is a municipality and city in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. Deventer is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, in 2005 the municipality of Bathmen was merged with Deventer as part of a national effort to reduce bureaucracy in the country. Deventer was probably founded around 768 by the English missionary Lebuinus and it was immediately rebuilt and fortified with an earthen wall. Deventer received city rights in 956, after which fortifications were built or replaced by stone walls around the city for defense. Between 1000 and 1500, Deventer grew to be a trade city because of its harbour on the river IJssel. The city eventually joined the Hanseatic League, Deventer is the birthplace of Geert Groote and home to his Brethren of the Common Life, a school of religious thought that influenced Thomas a Kempis and Erasmus in later times. Together with Haarlem it was among the first cities to have printing presses, from around 1300, it also housed a Latin School, which became internationally renowned, and remained in service in changing forms until 1971. Its most famous pupil was the scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who was born in 1466, between 1500 and 1800, the mass of water flowing through the IJssel decreased, decreasing the importance of Deventers harbour. The competition with trade centres in Holland, as well as the war between 1568 and 1648, brought a decline in the citys economy. In the 18th century, the industry came to Deventer. East of the town, so-called oer, riversand containing iron, was found as early as 900, from this material, ore was produced and brought to town. The main road of the villages Okkenbroek, Lettele and Schalkhaar is still named Oerdijk, in the 19th century, Deventer became an industrial town. Bicycles, carpets, tins and cans for food and drinks, cigars, foundry and heavy machinery, some of these industries are still thriving today, such as beds and accessories and publishing The citys trade and industry is still of some importance. The city is host to a factory producing central heating systems, as well as Wolters Kluwer, the Deventer honey cake, produced in Deventer for over 500 years, is still manufactured locally and sold all over the Netherlands and beyond. Deventer has seen few military engagements throughout its history, although it was a garrison city of the Dutch cavalry. The industrial area and harbour were bombed heavily during World War II, the city centre has been largely spared, thus offering a view that has remained largely unchanged for the past few centuries. The female Jewish poet and writer Etty Hillesum lived in Deventer during the war before being deported to Auschwitz, in Schalkhaar, a village only 2 km northeast of the city centre, barracks were used by the German occupying forces to train Nazi policemen. The compound is now a centre for asylum seekers, Deventer has been somewhat popular with the film industry
13.
Zwolle
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Zwolle is the capital city and municipality of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. It has a population around 125,000, archaeological findings indicate that the area surrounding Zwolle has been inhabited for a long time. A woodhenge that was found in the Zwolle-Zuid suburb in 1993 was dated to the Bronze Age period, during the Roman era, the area was inhabited by Salian Franks. The modern city was founded around 800 CE by Frisian merchants, the name Zwolle is derived from the word Suolle, which means hill. This refers to an incline in the landscape between the four rivers surrounding the city, IJssel, Vecht, Aa and Zwarte Water, the hill was the only piece of land that would remain dry during the frequent floodings of the rivers. Zwolle was established on that incline, a document mentions the existence of a parish church dedicated to St Michael. That church, the Grote or Sint Michaëlskerk, was renovated in the first half of the 15th century, the church contains a richly carved pulpit, the work of Adam Straes van Weilborch, some good carving and an exquisite organ. On August 31,1230, the bishop of Utrecht granted Zwolle city rights, Zwolle became a member of the Hanseatic league in 1294, and in 1361 joined the war between the Hanseatic League and Valdemar IV of Denmark. In the 1370 Treaty of Stralsund that ended the war, Zwolle was awarded a vitte, zwolles golden age came in the 15th century. Between 1402 and 1450, the citys Gross Regional Product multiplied by about six, in July 1324 and October 1361, regional noblemen set fire to Zwolle. In the 1324 fire, only nine buildings escaped the flames, Zwolle was also, with Deventer, one of the centers of the Brethren of the Common Life, a monastic movement. 5 km from Zwolle, on an eminence called the Agnietenberg, once stood the Augustinian convent in which Thomas à Kempis spent the greatest part of his life. At least as early as 1911, Zwolle had a trade by river, a large fish market. The more important industries comprised cotton manufactures, iron works, boat-building, dyeing and bleaching, tanning, rope-making, in World War II, Zwolle was single-handedly liberated from the Germans by Canadian soldier Léo Major. He was made a citizen of Zwolle in 2005 and a street is named for him. Citizens of Zwolle are colloquially known as Blauwvingers and this dates back to 1682, when the St Michaels church tower collapsed. The authorities were strapped for cash and saw no option but to sell the church bells to neighbouring city Kampen, to make sure that Kampen would not make too much profit from the deal, the local authorities asked a high price for the church bells. Kampen accepted, yet after the arrival of the bells it became clear, in revenge, Kampen paid in copper coins of four duiten
14.
Kampen, Overijssel
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Kampen is a municipality, a city and an old Hanseatic city at the lower reaches of the river IJssel in the Dutch province of Overijssel. The municipality of Kampen had a population of 51,278 in 2014, Kampen is located in the North West of Overijssel and is the largest city in this region. The city of Kampen itself has around 35,000 inhabitants, Kampen has one of the best preserved old town centres of the Netherlands, including remains of the ancient city wall and numerous churches. Also notable are the three bridges over the IJssel which connect Kampen with IJsselmuiden and Kampereiland, the area between the branches which form the IJssel delta, and a windmill. Traditionally people in Kampen speak a variation of the Sallands dialect, by 1150, there were already wooden buildings on the site where Kampen is currently located. The name Kampen, however, is not mentioned until 1277, the city has had city rights since 1236. In the 14th century, Kampen exchanged with the bishop of Utrecht, Jan van Arkel, the silting up of the IJssel brought a gradual end to the prosperity of Kampen from 1430 on. For a long time Kampen did not want to sign a union and make economic and political concessions to other cities, as was usual in the Hanseatic League. When the County of Holland went to war with the Hanseatic League this situation came to an end, Kampen was originally more oriented toward the Baltic trade and commerce with the hinterland of the Rhine, and therefore in 1441 formally joined the Hanseatic League. This project was accomplished in just five months, with this bridge Kampen hoped to be able to develop closer relationships with the hinterland. On 11 August 1572 Kampen was conquered from the Spaniards by Willem van den Bergh, after the massacre of Zutphen on 15 November, the city voluntarily surrendered to the Spanish. In 1578, the city changed again after the Siege of Kampen. Due to its right to increase the IJsseldelta, Kampen was owner of the growing Kampereiland, from 1500 the islands were leased. The rents were so large that the city did not need to raise taxes, Kampen only became well known again in the 19th century. The city was difficult to reach from the sea, because the wetlands became silted up. During the preceding centuries, the watercourse of the river IJssel was dredged several times, but the costs were high and within a few years. As the IJssel had several delta-like mouths here, the route of the river shifted several times. In the 19th century, a new strategy was put in place to counter this problem and this had the advantage that less sand and silt were deposited and resulted in a river course that swept itself clean
15.
Nederrijn
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Nederrijn is the name of the Dutch part of the River Rhine from the confluence at the town of Angeren of the cut-off Rhine bend of Oude Rijn and the Pannerdens Kanaal. The city of Arnhem lies on the bank of the river Nederrijn. The Nederrijn flows on to the city of Wijk bij Duurstede, the once-important but now small Kromme Rijn branch carries the name Rhine towards the city of Utrecht. In order to regulate the distribution of drainage between the different branches of the Rhine, several dams have been constructed, if the dams are closed, there is little flow in the Nederrijn and most of the water drained by the IJssel. Bridges over the Nederrijn are in Arnhem, in Heteren and Rhenen, ferries are found near Doorwerth, Wageningen, Opheusden, Elst and Amerongen. In 1530, the Rhine near Arnhem was moved, a project that was completed in 1536, the city, which originated along the St. Jansbeek, could develop better now that it was closer the river, and was also more easily defended against Habsburg expansionism into Guelders
16.
Westervoort
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Westervoort is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. The town has two rivers inside its borders, the Rhine and the IJssel and it is a commuter town closely linked to Arnhem, the capital of Gelderland, which is situated on the west bank of the IJssel river, the east bank being occupied by Westervoort. It is the smallest Dutch municipality by area, on 11 December 2011, a new railway station was opened in Westervoort. This meant that for the first time in 75 years the inhabitants of Westervoort could make use of transportation again. Next to the recently opened station, public buses run through Westervoort and these buses establish a direct connection to Arnhem and the surrounding towns of Duiven and Zevenaar. The A12 motorway runs north of Westervoort and has an exit serving both Westervoort and the parts of Duiven. In the south of Westervoort a small ferry boat connects Westervoort to the town of Huissen by crossing the Rhine, theo Snelders, football goalkeeper Esmée Denters, singer-songwriter Media related to Westervoort at Wikimedia Commons Official website
17.
IJsselmeer
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Ijsselmeer, or IJsselmeer is a shallow artificial lake of 1100 km² in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland, with an average depth of 5 to 6 m. The IJsselmeer is the largest lake in Western Europe, the IJsselmeer is a freshwater lake fed through the Ketelmeer by the river IJssel, which gives it its name. It is mainly fed by water from the Rhine since the IJssel is a branch of it, the first two letters of the name are capitalized because IJ is a digraph in Dutch, possibly a ligature, so it is treated as a single letter for most purposes. The IJsselmeer was created in 1932 when a shallow inland bay, the Zuiderzee, was closed by a 32 km dam. This was part of a hydraulic engineering project known as the Zuiderzee Works. This former southern part of the IJsselmeer is now the hydrologically separate Markermeer, the IJsselmeer functions as a major fresh water reserve, serving as a source for agriculture and drinking water. It also offers a number of opportunities for recreational activities, the province of Flevoland was established in 1986 and consists of three polders reclaimed from the IJsselmeer. The narrow lake east of IJsselmeer is Lake Ketelmeer, the lake receives water from rivers that carry industrial pollutants from factories upstream. Those polluted sediments have settled to the bottom in a layer of contaminated sludge. To restore a normal environment, this material needs to be removed from the lakebed. In 2010 an artificial island called the IJsseloog was installed in Lake Ketelmeer and it is a repository for contaminated material dredged from the bottom of the lake. Once the repository is full, it will be capped and turned into a nature reserve, media related to IJsselmeer at Wikimedia Commons
18.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
19.
Dutch Low Saxon language
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Dutch Low Saxon are the Low Saxon dialects that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. The rest of the Netherlands speaks Dutch, Frisian or Low Franconian languages and they do not form a coherent language family. The classification of Dutch Low Saxon is not unanimous, from a diachronic point of view, the Dutch Low Saxon dialects are merely the West Low German dialects native to areas in the Netherlands, as opposed to areas beyond the national border with Germany. Some Dutch Low Saxon dialects like Tweants show features of Westphalian, from a strictly synchronic point of view, however, some linguists classify Dutch Low Saxon as a variety of Dutch. Also, as a matter, Dutch Low Saxon, since the 17th century, has been influenced by Standard Dutch. Recent studies have, however, shown that mutual intelligibility is not necessarily impaired, shortly after the Second World War, linguists claimed that speaking a dialect other than the standard language would impair childrens learning abilities. It also brought about a general opinion among speakers of Low Saxon that having the slightest accent, in Dutch, would reduce job opportunities and social status. Throughout the 1960s, the language inspired many to form dialect preservation circles and groups. Many of them were interested in preserving rather than promoting the language. The prevailing tone was one of melancholy and nostalgia and their focus was often on preserving cultural traits considered typical to speakers of the language, such as rural life and traditional practices, crafts and costumes. That merely confirmed many of the stereotypes about speakers of the language. Another tone was rather literary in nature, though well-intended, it caused even more estrangement with younger generations. At the same time, knowledge of and appreciation for related varieties was poor and that resulted in little co-operation and no nationwide coordination. Other attempts to unite the different dialect circles were met with cynicism, the conception prevailed that the dialects were too different to unite. In 1975, the rock n roll band Normaal boldly shook all perceptions of Low Saxon, until then, Low Saxon was mostly restricted to traditional folklore music. Normaal openly denounced all Dutch disdain, praised farmers and local life and boldly used Achterhooks Low Saxon, voicing the opinion. Their hit song Oerend Hard, a song about two bikers who lose their lives in an accident, took the charts by storm, and it quickly garnered them a large fan base, even in non-Low Saxon areas, such as Fryslân and Limburg. In 1996, Dutch Low Saxon was added to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Dutch provinces now receive minor funds for preserving and promoting the use of Low Saxon
20.
Rhine
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The largest city on the river Rhine is Cologne, Germany, with a population of more than 1,050,000 people. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe, at about 1,230 km, with an average discharge of about 2,900 m3/s. The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days. The many castles and fortifications along the Rhine testify to its importance as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire, in the modern era, it has become a symbol of German nationalism. The variant of the name of the Rhine in modern languages are all derived from the Gaulish name Rēnos, spanish is with French in adopting the Germanic vocalism Rin-, while Italian, Occitan and Portuguese retain the Latin Ren-. The Gaulish name Rēnos belongs to a class of river names built from the PIE root *rei- to move, flow, run, the grammatical gender of the Celtic name is masculine, and the name remains masculine in German, Dutch and French. The Old English river name was variously inflected as masculine or feminine, the length of the Rhine is conventionally measured in Rhine-kilometers, a scale introduced in 1939 which runs from the Old Rhine Bridge at Constance to Hoek van Holland. The river length is shortened from the rivers natural course due to a number of canalisation projects completed in the 19th and 20th century. The total length of the Rhine, to the inclusion of Lake Constance and its course is conventionally divided as follows, The Rhine carries its name without distinctive accessories only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein near Tamins-Reichenau. Above this point is the catchment of the headwaters of the Rhine. It belongs almost exclusively to the Swiss Canton of Graubünden, ranging from Gotthard Massif in the west via one valley lying in Ticino, traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass in the Gotthard region is seen as the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the Rheinwald valley below Mount Rheinwaldhorn, the Vorderrhein, or Anterior Rhine, springs from Lai da Tuma, near the Oberalp Pass and passes the impressive Ruinaulta formed by the largest visible rock slide in the alps, the Flims Rockslide. A multiday trekking route is signposted along the young Rhine called Senda Sursilvana, the Hinterrhein/Rein Posteriur, or Posterior Rhine, starts from the Paradies Glacier, near the Rheinwaldhorn. One of its tributaries, the Reno di Lei, drains the Valle di Lei on politically Italian territory, after three main valleys separated by the two gorges, Roflaschlucht and Viamala, it reaches Reichenau. The Vorderrhein arises from numerous source streams in the upper Surselva, one source is Lai da Tuma with the Rein da Tuma, which is usually indicated as source of the Rhine, flowing through it. Into it flow tributaries from the south, some longer, some equal in length, such as the Reno di Medel, the Rein da Maighels, and the Rein da Curnera. The Cadlimo Valley in the Canton of Ticino is drained by the Reno di Medel, all streams in the source area are partially, sometimes completely, captured and sent to storage reservoirs for the local hydro-electric power plants. In its lower course the Vorderrhein flows through a gorge named Ruinaulta through the Flims Rockslide, the whole stretch of the Vorderrhein to the Rhine confluence near Reichenau-Tamins is accompanied by a long-distance hiking trail called Senda Sursilvana
21.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
22.
Afsluitdijk
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It is a fundamental part of the larger Zuiderzee Works, damming off the Zuiderzee, a salt water inlet of the North Sea, and turning it into the fresh water lake of the IJsselmeer. The Afsluitdijk was the demonstration site for a 130 kilometres per hour speed limit in the Netherlands. Work started at four points, on sides of the mainland and on two specially made construction-islands along the line of the future dike. From these points, the dike slowly grew by ships depositing till into the sea until it breached the surface. The nascent dike was then strengthened from land by basalt rocks, the dike could then be finished off by raising it further with sand and finally clay for the surface of the dike, on which grass was planted. Construction progressed better than expected, at three points along the line of the dike there were deeper underwater trenches where the current was much stronger than elsewhere. These had been considered to be obstacles to completing the dike. On 28 May 1932, two earlier than initially thought, the Zuiderzee ceased to be, as the last tidal trench. The IJsselmeer was born, even though it was still salty at the time, the dike itself however was not finished yet as it still needed to be brought up to its required height and a road linking Friesland and North Holland also remained to be built. On 25 September 1933, the Afsluitdijk was officially opened, with a monument designed by architect Dudok marking the spot where the dike had been closed, the amount of material used is estimated at 23 million m3 of sand and 13. Beside the dike itself, there was also the construction of two complexes of shipping locks and discharge sluices at both ends of the dike. It is necessary to discharge water from the lake since it is continually fed by rivers and streams. In 2012, the State Secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment, Joop Atsma, a naviduct would have a high construction cost compared with standard locks and bridges, but would benefit the economy by reducing delays. After the cost–benefit analysis of all potential solutions was considered, a decision was made to strengthen the existing locks, however, it is quite possible that a naviduct will be built to replace the locks when they reach the end of their useful life in 2050. Provision for a line linking North Holland and Friesland had been included on the Afsluitdijk, in the form of a linear reservation. However, construction of the line was never undertaken by Dutch Railways, for reasons of cost, the reservation and abutments for the rail line were utilized instead for a second carriageway for the dikes two-lane highway in the 1970s, transforming the latter into todays four-lane A7 motorway. During the period 12–13 May 1940 it was the site of the Battle of the Afsluitdijk, icoon Afsluitdijk was a 2016 visual design project by Daan Roosegaarde and staff to enhance the Afsluitdijk with a variety of permanent and temporary features. The temporary features included energy-harvesting kites and a display of bioluminescent algae, the permanent features include Spiegelstenen—mirror stones—that memorialize workers on the original dyke and Gates of light—a highly reflective guard rail
23.
Zuiderzee
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Its name means southern sea in Dutch, indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk and this land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000. In classical times there was already a body of water in this location and it was much smaller than its later forms and its connection to the main sea was much narrower, it may have been a complex of lakes and marshes and channels, rather than one lake. Over time these lakes gradually eroded their soft peat shores and spread, some part of this area of water was later called the Vlie, it probably flowed into the sea through what is now the Vliestroom channel between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. The Marsdiep was once a river which may have been a distributary of the Vlie, during the early Middle Ages this began to change as rising sea levels and storms started to eat away at the coastal areas which consisted mainly of peatlands. The disaster marked the rise of Amsterdam on the end of the bay. The even more massive St. Lucias flood occurred 14 December 1287, the name Zuiderzee came into general usage around this period. For example, on 18 November 1421, a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike broke and this was the Second St. Elizabeths flood. The Netherlands was part of the First French Empire between 1810 and 1813, a département was formed in 1811 and named as Zuyderzée after the Zuiderzee, of which the territory roughly corresponded to the present provinces of North Holland and Utrecht. In 1928, the 6-meter and 8-meter sailing events for the Amsterdam Summer Olympics were held on the Zuiderzee. These towns traded at first with ports on the Baltic Sea, in England, and in the Hanseatic League, when that lucrative trade diminished, most of the towns fell back on fishing and some industry until the 20th century when tourism became the major source of income. Contained within the Zuiderzee were five islands, the remains of what were once larger islands, peninsulas connected to the mainland, or in the case of Pampus. These were Wieringen, Urk, Schokland, Pampus, and Marken, the inhabitants of these islands also subsisted mainly on fishing and related industries and still do in the case of Urk and Wieringen. All of these islands, except for Pampus, are now part of the mainland or connected to it, the construction in the early 20th century of a large enclosing dam tamed the Zuiderzee. The creation of this dam was a response to the flood of January 1916, plans for closing the Zuiderzee had been made over thirty years earlier but had not yet passed in parliament. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became the IJsselmeer and these areas, known as polders, were respectively the Wieringermeer, the Noordoostpolder, and Flevoland. This enormous project under the direction of Cornelis Lely, called the Zuiderzee Works, ran from 1919 to 1986, Zuiderzee Museum, dedicated to the history and culture of the former Zuiderzee Zuiderzee Cycle Route, long-distance cycle route around the former Zuiderzee Pathe newsreel of flooding,1916
24.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
25.
Distributary
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A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. They are a feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation, the opposite of a distributary is a tributary. In some cases, a minor distributary can divert so much water from the channel that it can become the main route. Common terms to name individual river distributaries in English-speaking countries are arm and they may refer to a distributary that does not rejoin the channel it has branched from, or one that does. In Australia, the term anabranch is used to refer to a distributary that diverts from the course of the river. In North America an anabranch is called a braided stream, in Louisiana, the Atchafalaya River is an important distributary of the Mississippi River. Examples of inland distributaries, Teton River—a tributary of Henrys Fork in Idaho—splits into two channels, the North Fork and South Fork, which join Henrys Fork miles apart. Kings River has deposited an alluvial fan at the transition from its canyon in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the flat Central Valley. Distributaries flow north into the Pacific Ocean via San Joaquin River, the QuAppelle River, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, is a distributary of the South Saskatchewan River. Its flow is controlled by the QuAppelle River Dam and this dam forms the southern arm of Lake Diefenbaker. The Casiquiare is a distributary of the upper Orinoco, which flows southward into the Rio Negro. It is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems, the IJssel, the Waal and the Nederrijn are the three principal distributaries of the Rhine. These are formed by two separate bifurcations within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, the Akhtuba River is a major distributary of the Volga. The bifurcation occurs close to, but before, the Volga Delta, the Tärendö River in northern Sweden is an inland distributary, far from the mouth of the river. It begins at the Torne River and ends at the Kalix River, the Little Danube in Slovakia branches off from the Danube near Bratislava, and flows into the Vah before rejoining the main river near Komárno. The area in the middle is the largest freshwater island in Europe, kollidam River is a distributary of the Kaveri River. These areas are highly flood-prone, for example the 2008 Bihar flood on the Kosi River, hoogli River is a Ganges distributary that flows through India, whereas most of the Ganges-Brahmaputra complex enters the sea through Bangladesh
26.
Waal (river)
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The Waal or Rivier Waal is the main distributary branch of river Rhine flowing through the Netherlands. Approximately 80 km, it is the waterway connecting the port of Rotterdam to Germany. Before it reaches Rotterdam, it joins with the Afgedamde Maas near Woudrichem to form the Boven Merwede, along its length, Nijmegen, Tiel, Zaltbommel and Gorinchem are towns of importance with direct access to the river. The river, which is the channel in the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta system. In 1915, a perfectly preserved iron and bronze Roman cavalry helmet, the name Waal, in Roman times called Vacalis, Vahalis or Valis, later Vahal, is of Germanic origin and is named after the many meanders in the river. It is, in turn, thought to have inspired early Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley region in New York to name the Wallkill River after it. Some of the bends are still visible near the main river and are sometimes reconnected to it in times of high water levels. In the Middle Ages, the name Waal continued after the confluence with River Meuse, the delta parts now known as Boven Merwede, Beneden Merwede and the upper section of river Noord were also called Waal. Near Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, the stream continued west until it flowed into River Oude Maas near Heerjansdam. This last stretch past Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, which separates the islands of IJsselmonde and Zwijndrechtse Waard, still is called Waal. It has been dammed off at both ends, railroad bridges, between Nijmegen and Nijmegen Lent between Zaltbommel and Geldermalsen The Waal has significant adverse water quality due to discharge of raw sewage by France and Germany. A number of pathogens have been monitored to occur in the waters from such sewage. Media related to Waal at Wikimedia Commons
27.
Digraph (orthography)
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Digraphs are often used for phonemes that cannot be represented using a single character, like the English sh in ship and fish. In other cases they may be relics from a period of the language when they had a different pronunciation, or represent a distinction which is made only in certain dialects. They may also be used for purely etymological reasons, like rh in English, digraphs are used in some Romanization schemes, like the zh often used to represent the Russian letter ж. As an alternative to digraphs, orthographies and Romanization schemes sometimes use letters with diacritics, like the Czech š, examples are found in Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Albanian and Gajs Latin Alphabet. In Dutch, when the digraph ij is capitalized, both letters are capitalized, digraphs may develop into ligatures, but these are distinct concepts – a ligature involves a graphical combination of two characters, as when a and e are fused into æ. Digraphs may consist of two different characters or two instances of the same character, in the latter case, they are generally called double letters. Doubled vowel letters are used to indicate a long vowel sound. This is the case in Finnish and Estonian, for instance, where represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by ⟨u⟩, ⟨ää⟩ represents a longer version of the vowel denoted by ⟨ä⟩. Doubled consonant letters can also be used to indicate a long or geminated consonant sound, in Italian, for example, consonants written double are pronounced longer than single ones. In modern English, for example, the ⟨pp⟩ of tapping differentiates the first vowel sound from that of taping, in Spanish and Catalan, ⟨rr⟩ is used between vowels for the alveolar trill /r/, since an ⟨r⟩ alone between vowels represents an alveolar flap /ɾ/. In Spanish the digraph ⟨nn⟩ formerly indicated /ɲ/, it developed into the letter ñ, in Basque, double consonant letters generally mark palatalized versions of the single consonant letter, as in ⟨dd⟩, ⟨ll⟩, ⟨tt⟩. However, ⟨rr⟩ is a trill, contrasting with the flap, as in Spanish. In several European writing systems, including the English one, the doubling of the letter ⟨c⟩ or ⟨k⟩ is represented as the heterogeneous digraph ⟨ck⟩ instead of ⟨cc⟩ or ⟨kk⟩ respectively. In native German words, the doubling of ⟨z⟩, which corresponds to /ts/, is replaced by the digraph ⟨tz⟩, some languages have a unified orthography with digraphs that represent distinct pronunciations in different dialects. For example, in Breton there is a digraph ⟨zh⟩ that is pronounced in most dialects, similarly, the Saintongeais dialect of French has a digraph ⟨jh⟩ that is pronounced in words that correspond to in standard French. Similarly, Catalan has a digraph ⟨ix⟩ that is pronounced in Eastern Catalan, the pair of letters making up a phoneme are not always adjacent. This is the case with English silent e, for example, the sequence a. e has the sound /eɪ/ in English cake. Later still, the vowel /aː/ became /eɪ/, however, alphabets may also be designed with discontinuous digraphs
28.
IJ (digraph)
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IJ is a digraph of the letters i and j. An ij in written Dutch usually represents the diphthong, in standard Dutch, and most Dutch dialects, there are two possible spellings for the diphthong, ij and ei. This causes confusion for schoolchildren, who need to learn which words to write with ei, to distinguish between the two, the ij is referred to as the lange ij, the ei as korte ei or simply E – I. In certain Dutch dialects, as well as the Dutch Low Saxon dialects of Low German, whether pronounced identically to ei or not, the pronunciation of ij is often perceived as being difficult by people who do not have either sound in their native language. The tendency for native English speakers is to pronounce ij as which does not normally lead to confusion among native listeners, the ij originally represented a long i. This can still be seen in the etymology of some words, nowadays, the pronunciation follows the spelling, and they are pronounced with. The IJ is different from the letter Y and it used to be common, in particular when writing in capitals, to write Y instead of IJ. In fact this was the spelling in the earlier part of the 19th century. That practice has now long been deprecated, but the standard Dutch pronunciation of the letter Y is ij when reading the alphabet, also, in scientific disciplines such as mathematics and physics, the symbol y is usually pronounced ij. To distinguish the Y from IJ in common speech however, Y is often called Griekse IJ, i-grec, or Ypsilon. In Dutch, the letter Y today only occurs in loanwords, proper names, or in old Dutch, while in the related language Afrikaans, IJ probably developed out of ii, representing a long sound. In the Middle Ages, the i was written without a dot in handwriting, and the combination ıı was often confused with u. Therefore, later, the dots were added, albeit not in Afrikaans, a language that has its roots in Dutch. In this language the y is used instead, alternatively, the letter J may have developed as a swash form of i. In Dutch, which had a native ii, the i in a row elongated rule was applied as well. Another theory is that IJ might have arisen from the lowercase y being split into two strokes in handwriting, at some time in the 15th or 16th century, this combination began to be spelled as a ligature ij. An argument against this theory is even in handwriting which does not join letters. Nowadays, ij in most cases represents the diphthong, except in the suffix -lijk, in one special case, the Dutch word bijzonder, the sound is correct standard pronunciation, although is more common and is also allowed. This derives from an old practice of writing y instead of i after another vowel, later, when y and ij came to be seen as interchangeable
29.
Dutch orthography
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Dutch orthography uses the Latin alphabet and has evolved to suit the needs of the Dutch language. The spelling system is issued by government decree and is compulsory for all government documentation, the modern Dutch alphabet consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and is used for the Dutch language. Five letters are vowels and 21 letters are consonants, the letter E is the most frequently used letter in the Dutch alphabet, usually representing a schwa sound. The least frequently used letters are Q and X. Dutch uses the following letters, note that for simplicity, dialectal variation and subphonemic distinctions are not always indicated. See Dutch phonology for more information, the Latin letters c, qu, x and y are sometimes adapted to k, kw, ks and i. Greek letters φ and ῥ become f and r, not ph or rh, combinations -eon-, -ion-, -yon- in loanwords from French are written with a single n except when a schwa follows. Vowel length is indicated but in different ways by using an intricate system of single and double letters. Old Dutch possessed phonemic consonant length in addition to phonemic vowel length, with no correspondence between them, thus, long vowels could appear in closed syllables, and short vowels could occur in open syllables. In the transition to early Middle Dutch, short vowels were lengthened when they stood in open syllables, short vowels could now occur only in closed syllables. Consonants could still be long in pronunciation and acted to close the preceding syllable, therefore, any short vowel that was followed by a long consonant remained short. The spelling system used by early Middle Dutch scribes accounted for that by indicating the length only when it was necessary. As the length was implicit in open syllables, it was not indicated there, later in Middle Dutch, the distinction between short and long consonants started to disappear. That made it possible for short vowels to appear in syllables once again. That eventually led to the modern Dutch spelling system, modern Dutch spelling still retains much of the details of the late Middle Dutch system. The distinction between checked and free vowels is important in Dutch spelling, a checked vowel is one that is followed by a consonant in the same syllable while a free vowel ends the syllable. This distinction can apply to pronunciation or spelling independently, but a syllable that is checked in pronunciation will always be checked in spelling as well. Checked in neither, la-ten /ˈlaː. tə/ Checked in spelling only, a vowel that is checked in both is always short/lax. As tense /y/ is rare except before /r/, free ⟨u⟩ is likewise rare except before ⟨r⟩, the same rule applies to word-final vowels, which are always long because they are not followed by any consonant
30.
IJmuiden
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IJmuiden is a port city in the Dutch province of North Holland and is the main town in the municipality of Velsen. It is located at the mouth of the North Sea Canal to Amsterdam, the internal capitalization in the citys spelling is because IJ is a digraph in Dutch, and is therefore sometimes considered to be a ligature, rendering it a single letter. The port of IJmuiden is a port suited to fully laden Panamax ships. In the Roman era, this Velsen district was already inhabited, present day IJmuiden includes four harbors, the vissershaven, a fishing dock, the haringhaven, the IJmondhaven and the Seaport Marina IJmuiden, a harbour for pleasure craft. IJmuiden became the largest fishing port of the Netherlands after the island of Urk became closed in by the Afsluitdijk, the town suffered heavy damage and demolition during World War II, because of its maritime importance. Before the present IJmuiden was built, the area was known as Breesaap, the first spade hit the ground on 8 April 1865. He dubbed the town IJmuiden after passing the locks from the North Sea into the canal, the workers who dug the canal later settled there, they found work after the canal was finished in the fishing industry, but many also suffered extreme poverty. The IJmuiden name literally means “mouth of the IJ”, which is a hint to the importance the town has for the Amsterdam harbour, the name “IJmuiden” first appeared as IJ-muiden in lines written in 1848 by the professor and journalist Simon Vissering. The present IJmuiden form was adopted in 1876, as the North Sea Canal was being completed in this section. In 1890 it had about 1,500 inhabitants, but boomed when the Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens steelworks settled in IJmuiden in 1918, at that time shipping was at a low, because during World War I minesweepers laid many mines off the coast of IJmuiden. The quays at IJmuiden were crowded at that time with people desperate to be transported across the channel, IJmuiden became the site of two separate fortified pens constructed by the German navy to house their Schnellboote and Biber midget submarines. The older structure, codename Schnellbootbunker AY, was protected by a 10-foot thick concrete roof, the newer one, codename Schnellbootbunker BY, had 10–12 feet of concrete, with a further 2–4-foot layer separated by an air–gap. The E-boats laid up in the shelters during the day, safe from air–attack and this included four attacks by No.9 Squadron and No.617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, during which a total of 53 of the five–ton, Tallboy earthquake bombs were dropped. The story of IJmuiden during the war is told in the Bunker Museum IJmuiden, after the war, the town was rebuilt according to a plan by the architect Willem Marinus Dudok. The statistical area IJmuiden, which includes the surrounding countryside, has a population of 30,466, the headquarters of the KNRM, Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution is located in IJmuiden. The IJmuiden harbour coast line remains the point for the equidistantly set UK-Netherlands sea boundary. The places to see on this route are the Hoogovensmuseum, the system of gates at the mouth of the canal. IJmuiden is home to two of the worlds most powerful water pumps capable of pumping 60,000 litres/second
31.
Proto-Indo-European
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Proto-Indo-European is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language and these methods supply all of the knowledge concerning PIE, since there is no written record of the language. PIE is estimated to have spoken as a single language around 3500 B. C. E. during the Neolithic Age. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe. Work has also gone into reconstructing their culture and religion, PIE had a complex system of morphology that included inflectional suffixes as well as ablaut and accent. PIE nominals and pronouns had a system of declension. The PIE phonology, particles, numerals, and copula are also well-reconstructed, today, the most widely-spoken daughter languages of PIE are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, French, and Marathi. There is no evidence of PIE. It has been reconstructed from its present-day descendants using the comparative method, the comparative method is based on the Neogrammarian rule that the Indo-European sound laws are applied without exception. The method compares languages and applies the laws to find a common ancestor. For example, compare the pairs of words in Italian and English, piede and foot, padre and father, pesce and fish. Since there is a consistent correspondence of the consonants that is far too frequent to be coincidental. Although his name is associated with this observation, he was not the first to make it. In many ways Jones work was less accurate than his predecessors, as he erroneously included Egyptian, Japanese and Chinese in the Indo-European languages, while omitting Hindi. In 1818, Rasmus Christian Rask elaborated the set of correspondences to include other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit and Greek, and the full range of consonants involved. In 1816 Franz Bopp published On the System of Conjugation in Sanskrit in which he investigated a common origin of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. In 1833 he began publishing the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic, in 1822, Jacob Grimm formulated what is now known as Grimms law as a general rule in his Deutsche Grammatik. Grimm showed correlations between the Germanic and other Indo-European languages, and showed that sound change affects an entire language systematically, august Schleichers A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages was an early attempt to reconstruct the proto-Indo-European language
32.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders
33.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
34.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
35.
Vlie
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The Vlie or Vliestroom is the seaway between the Dutch islands of Vlieland, to its southwest, and Terschelling, to its northeast. The Vlie was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times, today its still possible to reach the port of Harlingen by way of the Vlie. When the Afsluitdijk was created, the old streambed from the river to the sea was obstructed, the construction of the Afsluitdijk caused a 19% increase of current velocity in Vliestroom
36.
Strait
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A strait is a naturally formed, narrow, typically navigable waterway that connects two larger bodies of water. Most commonly it is a channel of water that lies between two land masses, some straits are not navigable, for example because they are too shallow, or because of an unnavigable reef or archipelago. The terms channel, pass or passage, can be synonymous and used interchangeably with strait, in Scotland firth or kyle are also sometimes used as synonyms for strait. Straits can be important shipping routes, and wars have been fought for control of them, numerous artificial channels, called canals, have been constructed to connect two bodies of water over land, such as the Suez Canal. Although rivers and canals often provide passage between two large lakes or a lake and a sea, and these seem to suit the formal definition of strait, the term strait is typically reserved for much larger, wider features of the marine environment. There are exceptions, with straits being called canals, Pearse Canal, Straits are the converse of isthmuses. That is, while a strait lies between two masses and connects two larger bodies of water, an isthmus lies between two bodies of water and connects two larger land masses. Some straits have the potential to generate significant tidal power using tidal stream turbines, tides are more predictable than wave power or wind power. The Pentland Firth may be capable of generating 10 GW, cook Strait in New Zealand may be capable of generating 5. There may be no suspension of innocent passage through such straits, list of straits Media related to Straits at Wikimedia Commons
37.
Island
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An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge. Example, Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, there are two main types of islands in the sea, continental and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is also part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere. This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, Iceland, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
38.
Vlieland
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Vlieland is a municipality and island in the northern Netherlands. The municipality of Vlieland has only one town, Oost-Vlieland. It is the second-least densely populated municipality in the Netherlands, Vlieland is one of the West Frisian Islands, lying in the Wadden Sea. It is the island from the west in the chain. The island was separated from the mainland in St. Lucias flood in 1287. Vlieland was named after the Vlie, the seaway between it and Terschelling that was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times, the northern part of the island of Texel, Eierland, once was the southwestern part of Vlieland. A storm surge in 1296 probably separated Eierland from Vlieland, until 1942 Vlieland, like Terschelling, was part of the province of North Holland. During the Second World War, Vlieland became part of the German Atlantic Wall, the Germans built two anti-aircraft batteries and stationed more soldiers on the island than there were inhabitants. They also repartitioned the island to Friesland and the situation was not reversed after the war, the mail station in the western part of the island is a reminder that in the past mail was delivered by ferry from Texel. Because of this history, Vlieland natives do not speak Frisian, the original dialect, Vlielands, was related to the dialect of Texel and to other Dutch dialects in North Holland. The last native speaker, Petronella de Boer-Zeylemaker, died in 1993 at the age of 107, Vlieland can be reached by ferry from the Frisian town of Harlingen on the mainland. Ferries are operated by Doeksen and the journey takes 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to cross the Wadden Sea, tourists are not allowed to bring cars with them on the ferry. A summer-only ferry service runs between De Cocksdorp on the island of Texel and the westernmost point of Vlieland. The most common form of transport on the island is the bicycle, a bus service runs from the ferry terminal to the village and campgrounds after the arrival of a ferry, and some time before departure. There is a small heliport near the village, but it is only used for SAR flights. Vlieland, being the outermost of the Frisian barrier islands, sees its climate the most moderated by the North- and Wadden Sea. As is the case with the other West Frisian islands, sunshine hours are among the highest in the Netherlands, and quite possibly among the highest in the North Sea basin. Temperature extremes are rare, on average only 6 times a year does the daytime high exceed 25 degrees, and a high above thirty happens on average only once every three years
39.
Terschelling
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Terschelling is a municipality and an island in the northern Netherlands, one of the West Frisian Islands. It is situated between the islands of Vlieland and Ameland, Wadden Islanders are known for their resourcefulness in using anything and everything that washes ashore. With few trees to use for timber, most of the farms, the islands are surrounded by shipwrecks, and even today many containers wash ashore that are blown off the decks of container ships in the North Sea. The main source of income on Terschelling is tourism, there is some agriculture, but a large part of the island has become a nature reserve. Terschelling is well known for the yearly Oerol Festival during which performances are played throughout the island, making use of its landscape. Terschelling can be reached by ferry from the mainland Frisian town Harlingen, the island in its current shape was formed in the Middle Ages from a sandy area called De Schelling in the west and the original island Wexalia in the east. The name Wexalia, Wuxalia, or Wecsile is the name of eastern Terschelling. However, this disappeared at the end of the Middle Ages. The last appearance of the name Wexalia is in a treaty between Folkerus Reijner Popma, then ruler of Terschelling, with king Edward IV of England in 1482. The oldest traces of civilisation on Terschelling date from around 850 and this hill was later used as a burial ground and is known as the Striperkerkhof. Historically, tensions existed between the inhabitants of West-Terschelling, with its orientation towards the sea, and the more agriculturally oriented inhabitants of East-Terschelling. In 1612 this led to the division of the island into independent political entities, only after the French occupation at the start of the 19th century was Terschelling again united as one entity. The Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz was born on Terschelling around 1550, in 1666 West-Terschelling was ransacked by the English. The English fleet had originally planned to attack the Dutch merchant fleet which was moored before the coast of Vlieland, when the Dutch vessels retreated towards Terschelling, the English followed, destroyed 150 Dutch vessels, and landed in the harbour of West-Terschelling. The town was burnt to the ground by the English on this occasion which would become known as Holmess Bonfire after the English admiral Sir Robert Holmes, the Great Fire of London in the very same year was considered by some to have been Gods retribution. On the island of Terschelling both Dutch, the language of the Netherlands, and Frisian are spoken. However, the use of the three dialects is on the decline, and all three are slowly being replaced by the standard Dutch language, the island is known for being one of only two Wadden islands where cranberries grow, the other being the island of Vlieland. In 1840, a barrel of cranberries, apparently packed by sailors as an antiscorbutic, washed ashore on the islands coast, the cranberries, finding the environment favourable, established themselves on the island
40.
Medemblik
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Medemblik is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. It lies immediately south of the polder and former municipality of Wieringermeer, Medemblik was a prosperous trading town, when in 1282, Floris V, Count of Holland, successfully invaded West Friesland. He built several fortresses to control the region, one of which was Kasteel Radboud in Medemblik, several more attacks took place in the following centuries. Many citizens fled to the castle, which the pirates unsuccessfully besieged, eventually, they took out their fury on the town, which burned to the ground. After this the band continued their path on land throughout present day North Holland. Medemblik obtained town walls in 1572, so that the castle lost its roll as a refuge for the citizens, which led to its partially dismantling in 1578. Over the centuries the fell into decay, but in 1889 it became property of the crown and was restored to be used as a courthouse. Anticipating the German invasion, the Rijksmuseum in September 1939 chose the castle as the hiding place of Rembrandts Night Watch. Again on 1 January 2011 Medemblik merged with Andijk and Wervershoof into the municipality Medemblik, the new city hall is the former office building of the DSB Bank in Wognum. Medemblik is best known in Europe for its sailing events
41.
IJ (Amsterdam)
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The IJ is a body of water, formerly a bay, in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is known for being Amsterdams waterfront and it is considered a river by Rijkswaterstaat, though some contest this qualification, calling the IJ a lake. Its name is an obsolete Dutch word meaning water, derived from the West Frisian word ie stream, the name consists of the digraph ij, which behaves like a single letter. Therefore, both letters are capitalized, cf. IJmuiden. Today, the IJ is divided into two parts, To the west, the Binnen-IJ, or Afgesloten-IJ, is connected to the North Sea Canal, where the port of IJmuiden. To the east, the Buiten-IJ is an extension of the IJmeer and Markermeer and these two lakes are separated by a set of locks. There are several theories about the origins of the IJ, perhaps it began as a stream, following a breakthrough in the dunes of Castricum. More likely, the IJ is a remnant of an arm of the Rhine delta. Finally, the IJ could also come from the lake Almere or Flevo, during the Roman period the IJ communicated on one side with the lake Flevo and the Vecht and the other with the North Sea. Connection with the North Sea has subsequently disappeared, while the IJ in the Middle Ages has expanded and this is due to the emergence of the Zuiderzee, itself a bay of the North Sea resulting from a number of storms. At the end of the Middle Ages, the IJ was a long and narrow brackish bay that connected to the Zuiderzee, at the same time, the bay gnawed away at the surrounding farmlands, almost connecting with the Haarlemmermeer and seriously threatening the cities of Haarlem and Amsterdam. Plans were put forth to reclaim both the Haarlemmermeer and the IJ and turn them into polders, at the same time, the North Sea Canal was constructed in the former IJ basin to provide Amsterdam with access to the sea again and revive its ailing port. It cut through the isthmus to connect to the North Sea near the town of Velsen, the east end of the IJ polders near Amsterdam was given over to industry, and a large new seaport area was constructed. The Buiten-IJ hosted the mixed dinghy sailing events for the 1928 Summer Olympics in neighboring Amsterdam and it also hosted two events for the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. 1928 Summer Olympics official report, featuring map of the Buiten IJ. pp. 271–2,274, website Historical ferries Sports-Reference. com 1920 Summer Olympics sailing mixed 12-foot results. Sports-Reference. com 1928 Summer Olympics sailing mixed dinghy results
42.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
43.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
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German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
