[2] In this period, Hoorn developed into a prosperous port city, being home to one of the six chambers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

[11] A different theory claims that the name was derived from a sign depicting a post horn, which hung from one of the taverns established by brewers from Hamburg in the early fourteenth century.

[14] One of the earliest mentions of Hoorn is found in a letter which states that in 1303, a merchant from Bruges was imprisoned in West Friesland near a place called "Hornicwed".

[10][13] As a descendant of the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *hurnijǭ, the name Hoorn is a cognate with Danish and Norwegian hjørne, Icelandic horn, Swedish hörn(a), and West Frisian herne, which have all preserved the meaning of "corner".

In the beginning of the eighth century, the threat of Viking raids led to unrest in the Frisian Kingdom, causing many people to leave their hometowns and settle elsewhere.

[11] Following this example, Hornus – a bastard son of Redbad – allegedly moved westward along with his companions and, in 719, built a settlement west of the river Vlie, which he named after himself.

[19] The marketplace attracted many foreign traders, most notably from Hamburg and Bremen, who came to sell their goods (mostly beer) to the local population in return for butter and cheese.

[19] This also brought three brothers from Hamburg to the area, who recognized its convenient location and decided to each build an inn near the marketplace to increase the sale of their beers.

By that time, Hoorn had already been flanked by the Beggar control of nearby Enkhuizen and Medemblik, and many rebellious exiles from earlier troubles returned to influence the town’s politics.

[22] Hoorn rapidly grew to become a major port city and a prosperous center of trade, which flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, also known as the Dutch Golden Age.

[25] In 1616, the explorer Willem Schouten, together with Jacob Le Maire, braved furious storms as he rounded the southernmost tip of South America.

[6] After the introduction of railways and metalled roads in the late nineteenth century, Hoorn rapidly took its place as a conveniently located and easily accessible hub in the network of towns and villages of North Holland.

[6] As a consequence, thousands of people swapped their cramped little apartments in Amsterdam for a family house with a garden in one of Hoorn's newly developed residential areas.

[6] Hoorn is located in the east of the North Holland peninsula, on the northwestern shore of the Markermeer – the second largest freshwater lake of the Netherlands.

The city occupies an arc of land in the south of West Friesland at the northernmost end of a small bay named Hoornse Hop.

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