[34] Amsterdam's notable residents throughout its history include painters Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh, 17th-century philosophers Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, René Descartes, and the Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank.

[37][38] The origins of Amsterdam are linked to the development of a dam on the Amstel River called Amestelle, meaning 'watery area', from Aa(m) 'river' + stelle 'site at a shoreline', 'river bank'.

In an extremely short time, the shallow river IJ turned into a wide estuary, which from then on offered the Amstel an open connection to the Zuiderzee, IJssel, and waterways further afield.

From the 15th century on the city established an independent trade route with the Baltic Sea in grain and timber, cutting out the Hanseatic League as middlemen.

Inventions of on-board gibbing and the haringbuis in 1415, made longer voyages feasible and hence enabled Dutch fishermen to follow the herring shoals far from the coasts, giving them a monopoly in the industry.

Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Protestant Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants, and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam.

[54] Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, the Caribbean, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network.

[60] On 1 January 1921, after a flood in 1916, the depleted municipalities of Durgerdam, Holysloot, Zunderdorp and Schellingwoude, all lying north of Amsterdam, were, at their own request, annexed to the city.

[65] These suburbs contained many public parks and wide-open spaces, and the new buildings provided improved housing conditions with larger and brighter rooms, gardens, and balconies.

The project was controversial because its cost had exceeded its budget by a factor of three by 2008,[74] because of fears of damage to buildings in the centre, and because construction had to be halted and restarted multiple times.

This urban renewal and expansion of the traditional centre of the city—with the construction of artificial islands of the new eastern IJburg neighbourhood—is part of the Structural Vision Amsterdam 2040 initiative.

[82] Amsterdam has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb)[83] strongly influenced by its proximity to the North Sea to the west, with prevailing westerly winds.

Even then, because Amsterdam is surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water, as well as having a significant heat-island effect, nights rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F), while it could easily be −12 °C (10 °F) in Hilversum, 25 km (16 mi) southeast.

[98] This was all the more remarkable as Amsterdam was neither the capital city nor the seat of government of the Dutch Republic, which itself was a much smaller state than Great Britain, France or the Ottoman Empire.

[102] Amsterdam's population hit an all-time high of 872,000 in 1959,[103] before declining in the following decades due to government-sponsored suburbanisation to so-called groeikernen (growth centres) such as Purmerend and Almere.

[119] Segregation along ethnic lines is visible, with people of non-Western origin, considered a separate group by Statistics Netherlands, concentrating in specific neighborhoods especially in Nieuw-West, Zeeburg, Bijlmer and in certain areas of Amsterdam-Noord.

[132] A large influx of foreigners of many religions came to 17th-century Amsterdam, in particular Sefardic Jews from Spain and Portugal,[133][134] Huguenots from France,[135] Lutherans, Mennonites, as well as Protestants from across the Netherlands.

The first Ashkenazis who arrived in Amsterdam were refugees from the Khmelnytsky uprising occurring in Ukraine and the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of Central Europe.

The Museumplein with the city's major museums, the Vondelpark, a 19th-century park named after the Dutch writer Joost van den Vondel, as well as the Plantage neighbourhood, with the zoo, are also located outside the Grachtengordel.

[160] In the early 17th century, when immigration was at a peak, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay.

[163] Construction started in 1613 and proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it – and not from the centre outwards, as a popular myth has it.

In addition to the Zuidas, there are three smaller financial districts in Amsterdam: The adjoining municipality of Amstelveen is the location of KPMG International's global headquarters.

It consists of a network of canals, streets, and alleys containing several hundred small, one-room apartments rented by sex workers who offer their services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights.

In recent years, the city government has been closing and repurposing the famous red-light district windows to clean up the area and reduce the amount of party and sex tourism.

The 1949 song "Aan de Amsterdamse grachten" ("On the canals of Amsterdam") was performed and recorded by many artists, including John Kraaijkamp Sr.; the best-known version is probably that by Wim Sonneveld (1962).

[224] Famous festivals and events in Amsterdam include: Koningsdag (which was named Koninginnedag until the crowning of King Willem-Alexander in 2013) (King's Day – Queen's Day); the Holland Festival for the performing arts; the yearly Prinsengrachtconcert (classical concerto on the Prinsen canal) in August; the 'Stille Omgang' (a silent Roman Catholic evening procession held every March); Amsterdam Gay Pride; The Cannabis Cup; and the Uitmarkt.

Before moving to their current location in 1996, Ajax played their regular matches in the now demolished De Meer Stadion in the eastern part of the city[227] or in the Olympic Stadium.

The ceremony traditionally takes place at the Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square, immediately after the former monarch has signed the act of abdication at the nearby Royal Palace of Amsterdam.

From the station, there are regular services to destinations such as Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

[256] Bicycles are used by all socio-economic groups because of their convenience, Amsterdam's small size, the 400 km (249 mi) of bike paths,[257] the flat terrain, and the inconvenience of driving an automobile.