37 Facts About Haarlem

Haarlem is a city and municipality in the Netherlands.

Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe; it is part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area, being located about 15 km to the west of the core city of Amsterdam.

Haarlem was granted city status or stadsrechten in 1245, although the first city walls were not built until 1270.

Apart from the city, the municipality of Haarlem includes the western part of the village of Spaarndam.

Haarlem is located on the river Spaarne, giving it its nickname 'Spaarnestad' .

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Haarlem has been the historical centre of the tulip bulb-growing district for centuries and bears its other nickname 'Bloemenstad' for this reason.

Haarlem has a rich history dating back to pre-medieval times, as it lies on a thin strip of land above sea level known as the strandwal, which connects Leiden to Alkmaar.

Haarlem became wealthy with toll revenues that it collected from ships and travellers moving on this busy north–south route.

The town of Halfweg became a suburb, and Haarlem became a quiet bedroom community, and for this reason Haarlem still has many of its central medieval buildings intact.

The list of Rijksmonuments in Haarlem gives an overview of these per neighbourhood, with the majority in the old city centre.

In 1219 the knights of Haarlem were laurelled by Count Willem I, because they had conquered the Egyptian port of Damietta in the fifth crusade.

Haarlem received the right to bear the Count's sword and cross in its coat of arms.

Haarlem had taken side with the Cods in the Hook and Cod wars, and thus against Jacoba of Bavaria.

Haarlem councilmen became quite creative in their propaganda promoting their city.

In 2012 Haarlem gained a new local brewery with Uiltje Bar in the Zijlstraat, which specializes in craft beers.

Haarlem was an important stopover for passengers from the last half of the 17th century and through the 18th century until the building of the first rail tracks along the routes of former passenger canal systems.

Haarlem became more and more a bedroom community as the increasingly dense population of Amsterdam caused the canals to smell in the summer.

Textile industry, which had always been an important pillar of Haarlem's economy, was in a bad shape at the beginning of the 19th century.

Haarlem became the provincial capital of North Holland province in the early 19th century.

From 17 to 21 September 1944, parts of Haarlem-Noord were evacuated by the Germans to make place for a defensive line.

Haarlem has had a Christian parish church since the 9th century.

Haarlem was granted its first known indulgence by Clement V in 1309, during the Avignon Papacy.

In 1245 Haarlem received city rights as a result of population growth and the church was expanded.

Later, after the fires of 1347 and 1351, Haarlem was again granted a Portiuncula indulgence in 1397 for funding to rebuild the church.

Haarlem had a good reason to drown his sorrows, because he feared the Catholic Spanish invaders as much as the native Dutch reformers.

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However, after the siege of Haarlem was lost, the Spanish army restored Roman Catholic iconography.

Since Haarlem was quite poor after the siege, this led to many of the chapels and other Catholic churches being abandoned and used for other purposes.

All over the Netherlands, new Catholic churches were subsidised, called Waterboard churches, for their similarity to Waterboard pump stations, and in Haarlem they built the St Joseph kerk in the Jansstraat in 1841.

The only cinema in Haarlem is Pathe Haarlem, located in the newly built Raaks shopping mall.

Haarlem has many different sport clubs practicing a great diversity of sports.

Haarlem had a professional football club, HFC Haarlem, which went bankrupt in January 2010.

Tennis club HLTC Haarlem, founded in 1884, and judo association Kenamju, founded in 1948, are the oldest Dutch clubs in their sports.

Since the 18th century, Haarlem has historically had more museums per inhabitant than any other city of the Netherlands.

Haarlem is served by two railway stations of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen .

The city of Haarlem employs uniformed municipal enforcement officers, their duties consist of parking, sanitation, traffic, permit enforcement, and patrols throughout the city.

Beer brewing has been a very important industry for Haarlem going back to the 15th century, when there were no fewer than 100 breweries in the city.

Haarlem is set to ban most meat ads from public spaces because of the food's climate impact, starting from 2024.