Nijmegen

Nijmegen [ˈnɛɪmeɣən] (pronunciation (helpinfo)) (obsolete spellings: Nijmwegen, Nymegen, Nieumeghen — known in German as Nimwegen, French as Nimègue, and Spanish and Italian as Nimega) is a municipality and a city in the east of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is considered to be the oldest city in the Netherlands and celebrated its 2000th year of existence in 2005.

The city of Nijmegen

History

Nijmegen celebrated its 2000th year of existence in 2005; it is considered the oldest city in the Netherlands. In gaining this qualification, it has competed with the city of Maastricht.

The first mention of Nijmegen in history is in the 1st century BC, when the Romans built a military camp on the place where Nijmegen was to appear; the location had great strategic value because of the surrounding hills, which gave (and continues to give) a good view over the Waal and Rhine valley.

By 69, when the Batavians, the original inhabitants of the Rhine and Maas valley, revolted, a village called Oppidum Batavorum had formed near the Roman camp. This village was destroyed in the revolt, but when the revolt had ended, the Romans built another, bigger camp, where the Legio X Gemina was stationed. Soon after, another village formed around this camp.

In 103, the X Gemina was removed to Vienna, which may have been a major blow to the economy of the village around its camp. In 104, Emperor Trajan renamed the town, which now became known as Ulpia Noviomagus Batavorum, for short Noviomagus (the origin of the current name Nijmegen). (The old theory that Nijmegen received market rights is incorrect.) Few Roman remains are visible today; a fragment of the old city wall can be seen near the casino, and the foundations of the amphitheatre are traced in the paving of the present-day Rembrandtstraat. However, the Valkhof museum has a large collection of Roman artifacts that have been dug up over the ages.

In the 4th century, Roman power decreased and Nijmegen became part of the Frankish kingdom. It has been contended that in the 8th century Emperor Charlemagne maintained his palatium in Nijmegen on at least four occasions. Thanks to the Waal river, trade flourished and in 1230, Nijmegen was given city rights by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1247, the city was ceded to the count of Guelders as collateral for a loan. The loan was never repaid, and Nijmegen has been a part of Gelderland ever since. This did not hamper trade; Nijmegen even became part of the Hanseatic League in 1364.

The arts also flourished in this period. Famous medieval painters the Limbourg brothers were born and educated in Nijmegen.

During the Dutch Revolt, trade came to a halt and even though Nijmegen became a part of the Republic of United Provinces in 1585, it remained a border town and had to endure multiple sieges.

In 1678 Nijmegen was host to the negotiations between the European powers that aimed to put an end to the constant warfare that had ravaged the continent for years. The result was the Treaty of Nijmegen that, unfortunately, failed to provide for a lasting peace.

In the second half of the 19th century, the fortifications around the city became a major problem; there were too many inhabitants inside the walls, but the fortifications could not be demolished because Nijmegen was deemed as being of vital importance to the defence of the Netherlands. When, however, events in the Franco-Prussian war proved that old-fashioned fortifications were no more of use, this policy was changed and the fortifications were dismantled in 1874. The old castle had already been demolished in 1797, so that its bricks could be sold.

Nijmegen Waalbridge

A view over the center of Nijmegen in the wintertime

Through the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, Nijmegen grew steadily. The Waal was bridged in 1878 by a rail bridge and in 1936 by a car bridge, which was claimed to be Europe's biggest bridge at the time. In 1923 the current Radboud University Nijmegen was founded and in 1927 a channel was dug between the Waal and Maas rivers.

In 1940, the Netherlands were invaded by Germany with Nijmegen being the first Dutch city to fall into German hands. On February 22, 1944, Nijmegen was heavily bombed by American planes, causing great damage to the city centre. The American pilots may have thought they were bombing the German city of Kleve, which was clearly not the case. Alleged to have been a deliberate act by the Allies, the NIOD announced in January 2005 that its study of the incident confirmed that it was an accident caused by poor communications and chaos in the airspace. Over 750 people died in the incident. During 1944, the city saw heavy fighting during Operation Market Garden. The objective in Nijmegen in September 1944 was mainly to prevent the Germans from destroying the bridge. Capturing the bridge allowed the British Army XXX Corps to attempt to reach the British airborne troops in Arnhem. At one time, the bridge held close to 20 25lb anti-tank guns and two anti-aircraft guns. The Germans made repeated attacks on the bridge using bombs attached to driftwood, midget submarines and later resorted to shelling the bridge with 88mm barrages. Troops were positioned on the bridge giving an excellent arc of fire in case of attack. Troops that couldn't fit onto the bridge were positioned in a bombed out house slightly upstream of the bridge. During the shelling, the house was hit, killing 6 soldiers and wounding 1 more.

Nijmegen was liberated from German captivity by the First Canadian Army in November of 1944 for the last time. This city would later be used as a springboard for Operation Veritable, the invasion across the Rhine River by Allied Troops.

More recently, on February 23, 1981, the Nijmegen Police Department and the Dutch Army stormed the Piersonstraat and Zeigelhof, a squatted housing block in downtown Nijmegen. Using two hundred riot vans, three Leopard MBTs, three armoured personnel carriers, a helicopter, twelve hundred policemen, and seven hundred fifty members of the armed forces, they evicted the squatters and demolished the block, while clouding the entire area in teargas and CS gas. This had an enormous backlash in local politics. While the city government wanted the squatters out to build a parking garage, most of the population wanted affordable housing to be built in the area.

As to this date Nijmegen is still known as Havana on the Waal among some Right-wingers. The Socialist Party, the Green Party and Labour have a solid two-third majority in City Council, making Nijmegen the only major city in The Netherlands with a solely Left-wing government. The current mayor is Mr Thom de Graaf.

In November 2005, downtown Nijmegen was the site of the assassination of political activist Louis Sévèke.

Climate

Nijmegen is generally speaking the warmest area of the Netherlands, especially during summer, when the highest temperatures in the country usually are measured in the triangle Roermond - Nijmegen - Eindhoven. The lack of north-south oriented mountain ranges in Europe make this area prone to sudden shifts in weather, giving the region a semi-continental climate.

Some of the northernmost wineries in the world are found just outside of Nijmegen, around the village of Groesbeek, a suburb south-east of Nijmegen.

During the 2006 European Heatwave, Kalkar reached a high of 38.6°C (101.5°F) on July 19th, and a Weather Underground station in Nijmegen-Dukenburg reached a high of 38.7°C (101.7°F), which, if accepted by the KNMI, would be a record high for the Netherlands. However, the KNMI does not take any data for the Netherlands in consideration measured at stations other than the ones they operate. This heatwave fell together with the Four Day Marches, and at the 1st day, the 18th of July, 2006 the Marches got cancelled, because two people died of hyperthermia-related causes. The temperature that day was around 36°C (97°F)

Nijmegen is in USDA Hardiness zone 8, and AHS Heat zone 3.

Weather averages for Nijmegen, Netherlands
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high F (C)
Average low F (C)
Precipitation inch (mm)
Source: knmi.nl (Klimaatatlas van Nederland, normaalperiode 1971-2000, ISBN 90389 1191 2 ^[] dwd.de ^[] September 2007

Education

Nijmegen is host to a university, the Radboud University Nijmegen, it counted 17,627 students and its staff 4,336 people in the year of 2006. It was founded in 1923 as the first Catholic university in the Netherlands. It used to be called (Catholic) University of Nijmegen until 2004, when it took its current name.

Radboud University also runs the High Field Magnetic Laboratory which is able to achieve some of the highest fields available in Europe at 33 teslas (continuous) and 60 teslas (pulsed). The facility is available to outside users, primarily for research purposes. The education and social work departments of the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen school for higher level vocational training are also located in Nijmegen, as are that school's medical departments.

In addition to these institutions, there is also an intermediate level vocational school (ROC Nijmegen) and a number of secondary schools: Groenschool Nijmegen, Kandinsky College, Nijmeegse Scholengemeenschap Groenewoud (NSG), Stedelijke Scholengemeenschap Nijmegen (SSGN), Canisius College, Lindenholt College, the Stedelijk Gymnasium (formally the "Latijnse school", founded in the 16th century), the Karel de Grote College, Montessori College and the Dominicus College. Of note is also Leefwerkschool Eigenwijs, which caters to students from all over the Netherlands who have been repeatedly expelled from "regular" high schools. Leefwerkschool Eigenwijs has its roots in the local activist movement of the early 1980s and is the only school of its kind recognised in the Netherlands.

Nijmegen is also an important center of Psycholinguistics, housing the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics.

Transportation

Nijmegen has four train stations, Nijmegen, Nijmegen Dukenburg, Nijmegen Heyendaal and Nijmegen Lent. Intercity trains and fast trains stop at the central station. The bus company Novio maintains the city buses while Hermes and Connexxion maintain regional buses.

Museums in and around Nijmegen

Africa Museum (African art and culture)
biblical open air museum (ancient middle eastern buildings)
Valkhof museum (Roman and mediaeval history and modern art)
Velorama (bicycle museum)
MuZIEum (About seeing and not-seeing in Nijmegen)
Bevrijdingsmuseum (about World War II and the airlandings at Nijmegen)

International Four Day March Nijmegen

Participants at the start of the 1997 Four Day Marches

Nijmegen is famous for the International Four Day March Nijmegen (Dutch: Internationale Vierdaagse Afstandsmarsen Nijmegen, informally Nijmeegse Vierdaagse), an annual event starting on the third Tuesday in July, comprising four days of walking (distances ranging from 30 to 50 km a day), and the accompanying festivities, which have been drawing the largest crowds for any Dutch event in the past few years.

The event invites WWII allied veterans to help celebrate their participation in the liberation of the Netherlands from German occupation. Participants from Britain, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand have attended the event. Now-a-days, the event is international, inviting teams from all countries to attend.

During the Vierdaagse of 2006 two people died due to the extreme hot weather.(note that the deceased had other health issues that added up to the death cause). It caused the organisation to cancel the rest of the walk. This resulted in extra safety measures during the 2007 Vierdaagse; for instance, a professional weatherman was added to the organisation staff, more free water refill stations were added along the route and an extensive research program was developed to monitor the effects of hiking long distances on the human body.

Population centres

The municipality is formed by the city of Nijmegen, incorporating the former villages of Hatert, Hees and Neerbosch, as well as the urban expansion project of Waalsprong, that lies to the north of the river Waal, including the village of Lent and the new suburbs of Nijmegen-Oosterhout and Nijmegen-Ressen.

Politics

**Council seats**
Party	seats	change from 2002
PvdA	11	+3
SP	7	+1
GroenLinks	6	-3
CDA	5	-
VVD	4	-
D66	2	+1
stadspar	1	-2
VSP	1	-1
nijmnu	1	-
gewnijm	1	+1

The city council has 39 seats. After the 2002 municipal elections, the three major parties, GroenLinks (9 seats), PvdA (8 seats) and SP (6 seats) formed a coalition. Because these are all left-wing parties, Nijmegen received the nickname 'Havana on the Waal'. Although such majorities are no exception (compare Amsterdam) and sometimes also form coalitions (see Muntendam), this is unusual for a city this size. Since such a left-wing coalition might be possible at a national level after the 2006 general election, the achievements of this council are often scrutinised. After the 2006 municipal election such a coalition became possible in many more municipalities, making the example even more interesting.

The municipal elections of 7 March 2006 saw an increase of 4,6% of the votes for these three parties taken together, which could be seen as increased support for the coalition. However, nationally these parties scored much better, recovering from an electoral blow of the 2002 elections. Then again, the Leefbaar parties that caused the loss then and lost most of their votes this time have no branch in Nijmegen, which makes this comparison less valid. Among the three big parties, there was a shift from GroenLinks, who lost 6.5%, to PvdA, who won 6.4% and SP, who won 2.3%. As a result it is no longer the biggest party. The seat assignment is now as shown in the table. The three-party coalition was returned to office.

Famous people from Nijmegen

See also

Titus Brandsma, doctor in philosophy and member of World War II resistance
Petrus Canisius, saint
Eddie and Alex van Halen, rock musicians
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Saadia Himi, Miss Netherlands Earth 2004
Joris Ivens, film maker
Limbourg brothers, medieval painters
Frank Boeijen, popular singer
Pie Geelen, Olympic swimmer
Ron de Groot, football (soccer) player
Harrie van Heumen, ice hockey forward
Henrietta Pressburg, mother of Karl Marx
Anne Quist, Olympic rower
Edward Ka-Spel, Vocalist of The Legendary Pink Dots
Princess Irene of the Netherlands, the Queen of the Netherlands sister
Willem Ibes, world renown pianist

Sister cities

Nijmegen has five sister cities

Miscellaneous information

Nijmegen is the home-town of the Dutch football club NEC Nijmegen.
Nijmegen was referred to by the name "Marxograd at the Waal" by Dutch politician and former European Commission member Frits Bolkestein
Nijmegen was the location for the first Open European Mahjong Championship, held between 25-26 June 2005.
Nijmegen was called 'Noviomagus' when it was founded.
In , the Nijmegen Waalbridge is featured simply as the "Nijmegen Bridge".
In , the main character Boyd Travers of the 82nd Airborne plays a part in the liberation of Nijmegen during "Operation Market Garden".
Nijmegen Waalbridge is shown in the opening credits to the first series of Auf Weidersehen, Pet, supposedly set in Germany. The bridge is shown as they are driving over it, on their way to Düsseldorf to work.

External links

Official site
Novio site - information about the city bus service
NEC Nijmegen site
Official site of the Four Day Marches

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Municipalities of Gelderland

Aalten Apeldoorn Arnhem Barneveld Berkelland Beuningen Brummen Bronckhorst Buren Culemborg Doesburg Doetinchem Druten Duiven Ede Elburg Epe Ermelo Geldermalsen Groesbeek Harderwijk Hattem Heerde Heumen Lingewaal Lingewaard Lochem Maasdriel Millingen aan de Rijn Montferland Neder-Betuwe Neerijnen Nijkerk Nijmegen Nunspeet Oldebroek Oost Gelre Oude IJsselstreek Overbetuwe Putten Renkum Rheden Rijnwaarden Rozendaal Scherpenzeel Tiel Ubbergen Voorst Wageningen West Maas en Waal Westervoort Wijchen Winterswijk Zaltbommel Zevenaar Zutphen Netherlands Provinces Municipalities

Coordinates:

Motto
"Je maintiendrai" (French)
"Ik zal handhaven" (Dutch)
"I shall stand fast"¹
Anthem
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Provincie Gelderland
Province of Gelderland

Flag Coat of arms

Capital Arnhem
Largest city Nijmegen
Queen's Commissioner Clemens Cornielje
Religion (1999) Protestant 31%
Catholic 29%
Area
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Area is a physical quantity expressing the size of a part of a surface. The term Surface area is the summation of the areas of the exposed sides of an object.