Delft
Delft is a city in
South Holland,
Netherlands, dating from the
13th century, located halfway between
Rotterdam and
The Hague. The city received its charter in
1246.
Delft is also a municipality. It has about 96,000 inhabitants (2000). Due to the large number of university students at the Delft University of Technology, the population has a remarkable peak for males aged between 20 and 30.
City Hall
Delft is well known for the Delft pottery ceramic products which were styled on the imported Chinese porcelain of the 17th century. The city had an early start in this area since it was a home port of the Dutch East India Company.
It is the birthplace of scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. The painter Johannes Vermeer lived in Delft and used the city as the subject of some of his paintings.
The city centre retains many old buildings, and many streets have canals in the centre, inhabited by fish and plants. Historical buildings include:
- Oude Kerk (old church)
- Nieuwe Kerk (new church), constructed between 1381 and 1496. It contains the Dutch royal family's burial vault, which between funerals is sealed with a 5000kg cover stone.
- The Prinsenhof (princes' court), now a museum
- the city hall (as shown on the right)
The association of the
House of Orange with Delft began when
William the Silent, or Willem van Oranje as Dutch people usually call him, took up residence there in
1572. William was the leader at the time in the struggle against the Spanish, the
Eighty Years' War. Delft was one of the leading cities of
Holland and was equipped with the necessary city walls to serve as a headquarters. When William was shot to death in
1584 by
Balthazar Gerards in the hall of the Prinsenhof, the family's traditional burial place in
Breda was in the hands of the Spanish.. He was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk, starting a tradition for the House of Orange that has continued to the present day.
Recreation
In the east is a lake, called Grote Plas, in which people can swim. On the shore one can sit and lie in the grass and there are some stretches of sand. At the northeast side of the lake is a nudist area. It is not as separated from the textile areas as in other places: the walking path around the lake, for general use, passes through it.
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