Clouds, Light, Kampen, The Netherlands by Maarten Kost

About "Clouds, Light, Kampen, The Netherlands"

by Maarten Kost

About the artwork

Clouds, Light, Kampen, The Netherlands

Kampen is a city in the Dutch province of Overijssel and the capital of the municipality of the same name. The old Hanseatic city is located on the lower reaches of the IJssel, near the mouth of the IJsselmeer and the Keteldiep.

Kampen is located in Northwest Overijssel and is the largest place in this area. In 2018 the city had 36,625 inhabitants. The area of the city is around 11.39 km².

Around 1150 there were wooden buildings at the place where the current Kampen is located, but the name Kampen is only mentioned in history in 1227. However, the Kampen municipal archive now still has a charter in which Abel, the king of Danes and Slaves and Duke of Jutland, granting a privilege to the Ommelandvaarders, dated September 24, 1251. 2] Kampen was already an important and powerful city at that time ("the Rotterdam of the Middle Ages") and had a large fleet of Koggeschepen. The Ommelandvaart was made with these Koggeschepen: the voyage around Denmark to the Baltic Sea. Salt was traded in the cities around the Baltic Sea, which Kamper Koggen had taken from Portugal. The city received city rights around 1236, although it is quite possible that Kampen, like Deventer, Steenwijk, Zwolle and Hasselt, has become a city through common law. Thanks to its favorable location on the busy trade route between the Zuiderzee and the Rhine, Kampen.