Haarlem is a city and municipality in the Netherlands and the
capital of the province of North Holland. The city is located on the
river Spaarne and in the South Kennemerland region.
Haarlem
is one of the medium-sized cities in the Randstad. The municipality
of Haarlem includes the city of Haarlem and the western part of the
village of Spaarndam. Haarlem has 162,962 inhabitants, making it the
second largest city in North Holland after Amsterdam and the twelfth
municipality in the Netherlands. The metropolitan agglomeration of
Haarlem (Haarlem, Heemstede, Bloemendaal and Zandvoort) has about
230,000 inhabitants, and the urban region of Haarlem (South
Kennemerland and IJmond) has more than 430,000 inhabitants.
Haarlem is first mentioned in a document from the 10th century. In
1245 it received city rights from Willem II of Holland. At the end
of the Middle Ages, Haarlem had become one of the most important
cities in Holland. In the Early Modern Period the city developed
industrially as a textile city and culturally as a painter's city.
The place name Haarlem is probably a corruption of
Haarloheim or "Haralem". The obsolete heim in Dutch is related to
heme, which means 'place of residence'. Haarlo or Hara is related to
harula, a diminutive form of hair (sandy back). It is also possible
that the name as a whole could mean 'residence situated on a high
sandy ground in the forest (lo)'. However, the exact origin is not
entirely clear, this is because the word had many different meanings
to her at the time.
The name Haralem was first put on paper
at the beginning of the 10th century by a clergyman of the St.
Martin's Church in Utrecht, who had to make an inventory of all
church possessions. On this list the place is called Haralem with
three farms.
Its location on the river Spaarne has earned the
city the nickname Spaarnestad. A resident of the city is from
Haarlem, but is also referred to as a mosquito. Its origin is not
known with certainty, but 'mosquito' was already used as a swear
word in the 14th or 15th century. A logical explanation would be
that there used to be many mosquitoes in Haarlem. As alternative
explanations, the nitpicking of the Haarlemmers is mentioned, and a
saga about a witch who threatened to turn the inhabitants of the
city into mosquitoes if they did not listen to her.
In the
Early Modern Period, Haarlem was known as the city of painters.
Thanks to its location in the north of the Bulb Region, the city
nowadays also has the reputation of being the Flower City.
In
1658 Peter Stuyvesant founded New Haarlem in the province of New
Netherland, on the east coast of the present-day United States. In
1664 the English took over the colony and renamed the place Harlem.
Harlem, which lies in the north borough of Manhattan, is now part of
New York City.
Haarlem is first
mentioned in literary sources in the 10th century. In the source the
place is mentioned under the name 'Haralem'. Archaeological research
shows that 1500 years before our era there was already inhabitation
in the area around the Spaarne. The place originated as a ghost
settlement on a beach ridge, over which a country road ran that
connected the north of Holland with the south.
The city
became the seat of the Counts of Holland and in 1245 Count Willem II
granted Haarlem city rights. Due to its favorable location on the
Spaarne and the aforementioned connecting road, the city was able to
develop rapidly. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the city's economy
mainly revolved around beer brewing, shipbuilding and the cloth
industry. In the 15th century, the economy declined. This was partly
due to the riots in that period in Holland and West Friesland.
In 1572, during the Eighty Years' War,
Haarlem sided with the rebels of William of Orange and against the
Spanish king. At the end of that year, under the leadership of Don
Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, the siege of the city by the Spanish
began. In July 1573, the city surrendered after almost starving. 700
defenders, including their commander Wigbolt Ripperda, were
beheaded. Three years later, Haarlem was ravaged by a major city
fire. In 1577 the Spaniards left and the city came back to William
of Orange.
As a Catholic city, Haarlem was severely affected
by the Reformation. The Agreement of Veere, concluded in 1577,
established equal rights between Catholics and Protestants. This
made Haarlem the only Dutch city where there was religious peace at
that time. In June 1578, Protestants stormed the then Catholic Grote
Kerk on the Grote Markt. They looted the church and killed the
priest. The monasteries were also looted and partly destroyed,
intended as a revolt.
In 1581 the Veere Accord was
terminated. From that time on, only one religion was allowed in
Haarlem: the Reformed. Catholic life went underground: in secret
churches, such as the Old Catholic Church of St. Anna and Maria on
the Bakenessergracht, the Catholics continued to meet in secret.
After the peace had returned, many Flemish and French saw their
chance and moved to Haarlem. They gave the Haarlem linen industry a
new period of flowering. The painter Frans Hals was a son of one of
these Flemish immigrants.
The city experienced a period of enormous prosperity after 1577. The number of inhabitants grew from 18,000 to 40,000 within 50 years, making Haarlem one of the largest cities in Holland. The economic boom was mainly due to the textile industry, but also to the printing press and tulip trade. In 1631 the construction of a barge canal was started between Haarlem and Amsterdam and in 1657 a barge canal was dug between Haarlem and Leiden. At the end of the 17th century, the city's population had grown to 55,000.
After 1680, things went badly with the textile
industry in both Leiden and Haarlem. The population of Haarlem fell
in 1815 to below 20,000.
In 1839 the first train in the
Netherlands ran on the Amsterdam - Haarlem railway line. In 1842
this rail connection was extended to Leiden. The Oude Lijn, as it is
called, and the other railway lines in the vicinity of Haarlem were
operated by the HSM. All broad gauge lines had been converted to
standard gauge by 1866. The original Haarlem station was located on
the site of NedTrain's current overhaul company.
In addition
to the railway connections, the city also got a tram network in both
standard gauge and meter gauge. On May 28, 1878, the first horse
tram line between Haarlem station and the Dreef was opened by the
Haarlemsche Tramway-Maatschappij. In 1913 this line was electrified
and extended. Haarlem also got long-distance steam tram lines to
Leiden and Alkmaar and an electric tram line Amsterdam - Haarlem -
Zandvoort. All the tramway companies involved eventually merged into
the NZHTM (later NZHVM), which operated the Blue Trams. In 1957 the
last tram line was discontinued and replaced by a bus service. The
NZH Transport Museum keeps the memory of Haarlem's tram and bus
history alive.
The diocese of Haarlem was founded in 1853 and
a new cathedral was built between 1895 and 1930 on the then
outskirts of the city. It was not until the second half of the 19th
century that the city's economy started to recover. New industries
emerged, including the Beijnes coach and railcar factory, Figee's
machine factory and Joh. Enschedé. Also during this time the
defenses of the city were pulled down to make way for urban
expansions.
On May 1, 1927, the municipality of Schoten
became part of Haarlem. Parts of other surrounding municipalities
were also annexed. In the 1930s, Haarlem also suffered from the bad
economy and after the Second World War the large industrial
companies disappeared from the city. Haarlem became a city of
services, schools and government institutions.
A number of large-scale construction projects were started in
Haarlem in and after 2000, such as the Mariastichting project, the
new Raakskwartier construction plan and the Spoorzone master plan.
In 2018, eight development zones were designated, within these
zones large numbers of new homes will be built.