People in the Park in front of the Euromast in Rotterdam Netherlands

by Bart Ros

People in the Park in front of the Euromast in Rotterdam Netherlands

Rotterdam (Sound clip pronunciation (info / explanation)) is a port city in the west of the Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. With 588,490 inhabitants (January 1, 2021)[1], it is the second largest city in the Netherlands by population, after Amsterdam. The entire municipality of Rotterdam has 651,284 inhabitants, and the even larger metropolitan region of Rotterdam Den Haag has more than 2.3 million inhabitants.

Rotterdam owes its name to a dam in the river Rotte. The city is situated on the Nieuwe Maas, one of the rivers in the delta formed by the Rhine and the Maas. The port of Rotterdam was for a long time the largest in the world and is still the largest and most important in Europe. The port area extends over a length of 40 kilometers[2] and is an important logistics and economic center. Partly because of the port industry, Rotterdam has the image of a working class city and has a very diverse population.

After the historic center was largely destroyed by a German war bombing in 1940, Rotterdam has become a cradle for innovative architecture, including the Erasmus Bridge, the Cube Houses and a large number of skyscrapers. The city is also known for the Erasmus University, the art collections of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Kunsthal and soccer clubs Sparta, Excelsior and Feijenoord.