Leiden

Leiden ( ; ; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 127,046 (31 January 2023), but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration with its suburbs Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten and Zoeterwoude with 215,602 inhabitants. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) further includes Katwijk in the agglomeration which makes the total population of the Leiden urban agglomeration 282,207 and in the larger Leiden urban area also Teylingen, Noordwijk, and Noordwijkerhout are included with in total 365,913 inhabitants. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some  from The Hague to its south and some  from Amsterdam to its north. The recreational area of the Kaag Lakes (Kagerplassen) lies just to the northeast of Leiden.

A university city since 1575, Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. University buildings are scattered throughout the city and the many students from all over the world give the city a bustling, vivid and international atmosphere. Many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden's motto: 'City of Discoveries'. The city houses Leiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, and Leiden University Medical Center. Leiden University is one of Europe's top universities, with thirteen Nobel Prize winners. It is a member of the League of European Research Universities and positioned highly in all international academic rankings. It is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdom's oldest university. Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences (Leidse Hogeschool) together have around 35,000 students. Modern scientific medical research and teaching started in the early 18th century in Leiden with Boerhaave.

Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. The painter Rembrandt was born and educated in Leiden. Other Leiden painters include Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Goyen and Jan Steen.

 History 

Leiden was formed on an artificial hill (today called the Burcht van Leiden) at the confluence of the rivers Oude and Nieuwe Rijn (Old and New Rhine). The settlement was called Leithon. The name is from Germanic *leitha (canal).

Leiden has erroneously been associated with the Roman outpost Lugdunum Batavorum. This was thought to be located at the Burcht of Leiden, and the city's name was thought to be derived from the Latin name Lugdunum. However, the castellum was in fact closer to the town of Katwijk, whereas the Roman settlement near Leiden was called Matilo.

 Siege of 1420 

In 1420, during the Hook and Cod wars, Duke John III of Bavaria along with his army marched from Gouda in the direction of Leiden in order to conquer the city since Leiden did not pay the new Count of Holland Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, his niece and only daughter of Count William VI of Holland.

Burgrave Filips of Wassenaar and the other local noblemen of the Hook faction assumed that the duke would besiege Leiden first and send small units out to conquer the surrounding citadels. But John of Bavaria chose to attack the citadels first.

He rolled the cannons along with his army but one which was too heavy went by ship. By firing at the walls and gates with iron balls the citadels fell one by one. Within a week John of Bavaria conquered the castles of Poelgeest, Ter Does, Hoichmade, de Zijl, ter Waerd, Warmond and de Paddenpoel.

On 24 June the army appeared before the walls of Leiden. On 17 August 1420, after a two-month siege, the city surrendered to John of Bavaria. The burgrave Filips of Wassenaar was stripped of his offices and rights and lived out his last years in captivity.

 16th to 18th centuries 

Leiden flourished in the 16th and 17th century. At the close of the 15th century, the weaving establishments of Leiden (mainly broadcloth) were very important. In the same period, Leiden developed an important printing and publishing industry. Printers Lucas van Leyden and Otto van Veen lived here, and so did Christoffel Plantijn. One of Christoffel's pupils was Lodewijk Elzevir (1547–1617), who established the largest bookshop and printing works in Leiden, a business continued by his descendants through 1712.

In 1572, the city sided with the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule and played an important role in the Eighty Years' War. It was besieged from May to October 1574 by the Spanish but was relieved by the cutting of the dikes, thus enabling ships to carry provisions to the inhabitants. William I of Orange founded the University of Leiden in 1575 as a reward for their heroic defense. The end of the siege is still celebrated in Leiden on October 3 each year. According to tradition, the citizens of Leiden were offered the choice between a university and a certain exemption from taxes and chose the university. The siege is notable also for being the first instance in Europe of the issuance of paper money, with paper taken from prayer books being stamped using coin dies when silver ran out.
Leiden is known as the place where the Pilgrims and some of the settlers of New Amsterdam lived, operating a printing press for a time in the early 17th century before their departure to Massachusetts and New Amsterdam in the New World.

Leiden prospered in the 17th century, in part because of the impetus to the textile industry by refugees from Flanders. The city had lost about a third of its 15,000 citizens during the siege of 1574, but it quickly recovered to 45,000 in 1622 and may have come near to 70,000 . During the Dutch Golden Era, Leiden was the second largest city of Holland after Amsterdam. It played a crucial role in the establishment of modern chemistry and medicine due to the work by Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738).

Leiden slumped from the late 17th century on, mainly due to the decline of the textile industries. The baize manufacture was given up at the beginning of the 19th century, although industry remained central to Leiden economy. This decline can be seen in the fall in population, which had sunk to 30,000 between 1796 and 1811, and in 1904 was 56,044.

Leiden was the publishing place from the 17th to the early 19th century of the important journal Nouvelles Extraordinaires de Divers Endroits, known also as Gazette de Leyde.

 19th and 20th centuries 

On 12 January 1807, a catastrophe struck the city when a boat loaded with  of gunpowder blew up in the middle of Leiden. 151 people were killed, over 2,000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed. King Louis Bonaparte personally visited the city to provide assistance to the victims. Although located in the centre of the city, the area destroyed remained empty for many years. In 1886 the space was turned into a public park, the Van der Werff park.

In 1842, the railroad from Leiden to Haarlem was inaugurated and one year later the railway to The Hague (Den Haag) was completed, resulting in some social and economic improvement. Perhaps the most important piece of Dutch history contributed by Leiden was the Constitution of the Netherlands. Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) wrote the Dutch Constitution in April 1848 in his house at Garenmarkt 9 in Leiden.

Leiden's reputation as the "city of books" continued through the 19th century with the establishment of publishing dynasties by Evert Jan Brill and Albertus Willem Sijthoff. Sijthoff, who rose to prominence in the trade of translated books, wrote a letter in 1899 to Queen Wilhelmina regarding his opposition to becoming a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. He felt that international copyright restrictions would stifle the Dutch publishing industry.

Leiden began to expand beyond its 17th-century moats around 1896 and the number of citizens surpassed 50,000 in 1900. After 1920, new industries were established in the city, such as the canning and metal industries. During World War II, Leiden was hit hard by Allied bombardments. The areas surrounding the railway station and Marewijk were almost completely destroyed.

The University of Leiden has been the site of many discoveries, including Snell's law (by Willebrord Snellius), and
the Leyden jar, a capacitor made from a glass jar, invented in Leiden by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1746. Another development was in cryogenics: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913 Nobel Prize in Physics) liquefied helium for the first time (1908) and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree above the absolute minimum. Albert Einstein also spent some time at Leiden University during his early to middle career.

 Leiden today 

The city's biggest and most popular annual festival is celebrated on 3 October and is called simply 3 Oktober. The people of Leiden celebrate the end of the Spanish siege of 1574. It typically takes place over the course of two to three days and includes parades, a hutspot feast, historical reenactments, a funfair and other events. Since 2006, the city has also hosted the annual Leiden International Film Festival.

Leiden has important functions as a shopping and trade centre for communities around the city.

The city also houses the Eurotransplant, the international organization responsible for the mediation and allocation of organ donation procedures in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Leiden also houses the headquarters of Airbus, a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide. The group includes Airbus, the leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft worldwide.

 Buildings of interest 

Because of the economic decline from the end of the 17th until the middle of the 19th century, much of the 16th- and 17th-century city centre is still intact. It is the second largest 17th-century town centre in the Netherlands, the largest being Amsterdam's city centre.

A hundred buildings in the centre are decorated with large murals of poetry, part of a wall poem project active from 1992, and still ongoing.

 Notable people 

140px|thumb|William II, Count of Holland in the Lakenhal

The following is a selection of important Leidenaren throughout history:

 Public officials and scholars 

 William II, Count of Holland (1228–1256), Count of Holland 1234-1256
 Floris V, Count of Holland (1254–1296), Count of Holland and Zeeland 1256–1296
 John of Leiden (1509–1536), leader of the Anabaptist Münster Rebellion 
 William Brewster (1568–1644), pilgrim, Mayflower passenger in 1620 
 Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), scholar of the Dutch Renaissance 
 William Bradford (1590–1657), pilgrim, leader of the American Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts 
 Franciscus Junius (1591–1677), pioneer of Germanic philology 
 Isaac Elzevir (1596–1651), Dutch publisher and printer, co-founder of House of Elzevir 
 Love Brewster (1611–1650/1), pilgrim and founder of Bridgewater, Massachusetts 
 Isaac Vossius (1618–1689), scholar, manuscript collector and Canon at Windsor Castle 
 Nicolaas Heinsius the Elder (1620–1681), Dutch classical scholar and poet
 Johann Bachstrom (1688–1742), writer, scientist and Lutheran theologian
 Gottfried, Freiherr van Swieten (1733–1803), diplomat, friend and patron of several great composers
 Jan Bake (1787–1864), Dutch philologist and critic 
 Reinhart Dozy (1820–1883), Dutch scholar of Arabic of Huguenot origin 
 Cornelis Tiele (1830–1902), Dutch theologian and scholar 
 J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (1886–1964), museum curator, founding father of modern Dutch anthropology and structural anthropology
 Hans de Koster (1914–1992), Dutch politician, diplomat and businessman
Twins Alfred Kossmann (1922–1998), poet and prose writer and Ernst Kossmann (1922–2003), historian
 Leendert Ginjaar (1928–2003), Dutch politician and chemist
 Laurens Jan Brinkhorst (born 1937), retired Dutch politician and diplomat
 Ankie Broekers-Knol (born 1946), Dutch politician, jurist and Minister
 Carel Stolker (born 1954), rector magnificus and president of Leiden University from 2013 until 2021
 Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands (born 1966), wife of Prince Constantijn
 Kajsa Ollongren (born 1967), Dutch-Swedish politician, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands
 Julius Terpstra (born 1989), Dutch politician

 The arts 
140px|thumb|Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1655
140px|thumb|Willem van de Velde II, c. 1660)
140px|thumb|Leoni Jansen, 2013

 Cornelis Engebrechtsz. (c. 1462–1527), early Dutch painter 
 Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut
 Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), Dutch landscape painter 
 Justus van Egmont (1601–1674), painter and tapestry designer
 Rembrandt van Rijn (1606– 1669), Dutch draughtsman, painter and printmaker
 Willem van de Velde the Elder (1610/11–1693), Dutch Golden Age seascape painter 
 Frans Post (1612–1680), Dutch Golden Age painter
 Gerard Dou (1613–1675), Dutch Golden Age painter 
 Jan Steen (c. 1626–1679), Dutch Golden Age genre painter 
 Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), painter of history paintings, still life, portraits and genre works 
 Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), Dutch marine painter 
 Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681) Dutch Golden Age genre and portrait painter  
 Jan Gaykema Jacobsz. (1798–1875), Dutch painter, draughtsman and botanical illustrator
 Jan Elias Kikkert (1843–1925), Dutch lithographer and watercolorist of street scenes of Leiden
 Coenraad V. Bos (1875–1955), Dutch pianist, an accompanist to singers of lieder
 Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), Dutch artist, founder and leader of De Stijl 
 Ernst Winar (1894–1978), Dutch actor and film director IMDb Database  retrieved 15 January 2020
 Nina Foch (1924–2008), Dutch American actress and drama teacherIMDb Database  retrieved 12 January 2020
 Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008), Dutch composer, performer, inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments and artistic director of STEIM 1981-2008
 Leoni Jansen (born 1955), TV personality and anchor-woman, singer and stage-directorIMDb Database  retrieved 15 January 2020 
 Daniel Reuss (born 1961), Dutch conductor, primarily a choral conductor
 Isa Hoes (born 1967), Dutch actress and voice actressIMDb Database  retrieved 15 January 2020 
 Eva Dorrepaal (born 1970), Dutch actressIMDb Database  retrieved 15 January 2020
 Armin van Buuren (born 1976), Dutch DJ, record producer and remixerIMDb Database  retrieved 15 January 2020
 Carice van Houten (born 1976), Dutch actress and singerIMDb Database  retrieved 12 January 2020
 Dyro (born 1992), Dutch DJ and Electronic dance music producer

 Science 
140px|thumb|Herman Boerhaave
140px|thumb|Johannes Diderik van der Waals

 Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585), botanist, died in Leiden
 Charles de L'Écluse (1526–1609), botanist, horticulturist and director of Hortus Botanicus Leiden
 Ludolph van Ceulen (1540–1610), mathematician, computed the number π, pi
 Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626), Dutch astronomer and mathematician 
 Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician 
 Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770), a German-born Dutch anatomist
 Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772), Dutch physician, personal physician of Maria Theresa
 Petrus Camper FRS (1722–1789), Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist
 Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), German physician and botanist, studied Japanese flora and fauna
 Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–1923), Dutch theoretical physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics
 Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928), Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926), Dutch physicist and winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics
 Willem Einthoven (1860–1927), Dutch physician and physiologist
 Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943), Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
 Willem de Sitter (1872–1934), Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer
 Albert Einstein (1879–1955), lecturer/researcher at Leiden University, variously between 1916 and 1930
 Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933), Austrian/Dutch theoretical physicist, contributed to statistical mechanics
 Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz (1885–1973), female Dutch physicist, worked on Brownian motion and electrical noise theory
 Jan Oort (1900–1992), Dutch astronomer, pioneer in radio astronomy 
 Hendrik Casimir (1909–2000), Dutch physicist
 Ewine van Dishoeck (born 1955), Dutch astronomer, chemist, molecular astrophysicist

 Sport 
140px|thumb|Alfons Groenendijk, 2017
140px|thumb|Kjeld Nuis, 2018
140px|thumb|Buurtpoes Bledder

 Willem Slijkhuis (1923–2003), Dutch middle-distance runner, won two bronze medals in the 1948 Summer Olympics
 Sandra Le Poole (born 1959), retired field hockey player, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics
 Ronald Florijn (born 1961), former rower, twice team gold medallist, at the 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics
 Carina Benninga (born 1962) & Taco van den Honert (born 1966), former Dutch field hockey players, team gold medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics and team bronze medallist at the 1988 Summer Olympics
 Alfons Groenendijk (born 1964), former footballer with 413 club caps and current manager
 Gerritjan Eggenkamp (born 1975), Dutch rower, team silver medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics
 Rodney Glunder (born 1975), retired kickboxer, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler and boxer
 Tim de Cler (born 1978), Dutch former footballer with 361 club caps
 Erik van den Doel (born 1979), Dutch chess Grandmaster
 Merel Witteveen (born 1985), sailor, team silver medallist at the 2008 Summer Olympics
 Biurakn Hakhverdian (born 1985) & Iefke van Belkum (born 1986)), Dutch water polo players, team gold medallists at the 2008 Summer Olympics
 Gegard Mousasi (born 1985), Dutch mixed martial artist and former kickboxer
 Laurine van Riessen (born 1987), long track speed skater and track cyclist, bronze medallist at the 2010 Winter Olympics
 Kjeld Nuis (born 1989), Dutch speed skater, world record holder and gold medallist at the 2018 Winter Olympics over 1000 metre and 1500 metre
 Chantal de Ridder (born 1989), Dutch football striker, 46 caps with the Netherlands women's national football team
 Esmee Visser (born 1996), long-distance speed skater, gold medallist in the 2018 Winter Olympics in the women's 5000 metres

 Others 
 Maria Swanenburg (1839–1915), Dutch serial killer, murdered at least 27 people and suspected of killing more than 90
 Aemilianus van Heel (1907–1938), Franciscan friar who served as a missionary in China
 Marinus van der Lubbe (1909–1934), executed for the Reichstag fire in Berlin in 1933
 Buurtpoes Bledder (2011–2013), male domestic cat, media star for his exploits in the cityAn Obituary For an Extraordinary Cat; August 8, 2013  retrieved 16 January 2020
 Kirtie Ramdas (born 1980), Dutch television presenter and actress.

 References 
 Citations 

 Sources 


Category:Cities in the Netherlands
Category:Municipalities of South Holland
Category:Populated places in South Holland