Amsterdam Fast Facts

Amsterdam has over 1 million bikes but only 700.000 Amsterdammers. The name Amsterdam comes from the combination of the river Amstel and the Dam that was built on it in order to found the original village know today as Amsterdam. When you land at Schiphol Airport, you are actually four meters below sea level. The Netherlands has more than 4,000 km of navigable rivers, lakes and canals.

Did you know that:

• Witness how Holland wages war against the sea all the time, visit Neeltje Jan's in Zeeland and see for yourself. The story of the boy who stuck his finger in the hole in the Dyke to stop Netherlands from flooding.
• Amsterdam boasts more museums of any city in the world, measured per square meters.
• With over 70 major well know museums in Netherlands of which over 40 are in Amsterdam.
• They cover every sort of weird and wonderful topic, from famous painters to museums on the history of sex and marijuana
• The Dutch people are the tallest in all Europe and second tallest inthe world.
• The Dutch are the world experts on keeping back the water / sea from over running their country. During the hurricane Katrina disaster it was the Dutch the USA government turned to for help on how to repair the levies in New Orleans.
• If global warming causes the sea levels to rise even a little it could be bye bye Amsterdam as it will be one of the first cities to get flooded, because it’s actually well below sea level and most of the country has been reclaimed from the sea so it is almost entirely flat and is 6.7 meters below sea level at its lowest point.
• The Van Gogh collections in the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum are the largest in the world.
• Visiting the Amsterdam parliament building could prove difficult as there isn't one. Even thought Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands and is officially the capital it does not hold the parliament as all of the government functions take place at the Hague.
• The world famous Koh-I-Noor diamond was cut in Amsterdam.
• 75% of the entire worlds flower bulb production comes from Netherlands
• The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are both in The Hague.
• Holland has around a thousand original still working windmills.
• Netherlands is the third largest exporter of agricultural products in the world even though just three percent of the Dutch population are employed in this sector.
• Holland has over 15,000 km of bicycle lanes.
• Flevoland, the Netherlands twelfth province was reclaimed from the south sea which started in 1986.
• Amsterdam is built entirely on piles, huge stakes driven into the ground.Central station has 6000 of them keeping it up.
• Holland always has a coalition government, so it's a country of compromise and tolerance.
• Every Dutch person has at least one bike and there are twice as many bikes as cars.
• Holland was one of the six founding members of the European Union.
• Holland's highest point is 323 meters above sea level which makes it their highest mountain.
• Most Dutch people speak at least one foreign language as well as Dutch and English.
• Rotterdam, once the worlds largest port has now dropped to second place so it's the second largest port in the world.
• Holland and the Netherlands are the same country.
• A quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level.