Barendrecht
Barendrecht () is a town and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, near Rotterdam, South Holland. The municipality had a population of in , and covers an area of of which is water. The municipality of Barendrecht also includes Barendrecht-Carnisselande and Smitshoek. History. The name "Barendrecht" is derived from the Germanic word "birni", translated as "mud" or "muddy", and the Latin word "trāiectum" translated as "to cross (a river)" to denote a muddy river crossing. The current municipality of Barendrecht is located in the area of three former fiefdoms: East-Barendrecht, West-Barendrecht, and Carnisse. The oldest reference to  East-Barendrecht is from 1264. These fiefdoms were in Riederwaard, an area reclaimed from water since the 12th century but had to deal with frequent dike breaches throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. Further stages in land reclamation, constituting the major part of modern Barendrecht, were the Binnenland polder (1484), Buitenland polder (1555) and Zuidpolder (1649). During the French Period, the three fiefdoms were merged into one municipality Barendrecht. After the French Period, it was split into East and West-Barendrecht, but in 1836 it was again united as one municipality. Demographics. The population of Barendrecht increased ten-fold in  the last 80 years from just under 5,000 in 1930 to close to 50,000 in 2010. During this time the number of homes increased as well, there was an eight-fold increase in the number of homes in the last 50 years from 2,200 in 1961 to 18,400 in 2011. The overall population increased, whereas the number of persons per household decreased. This is consistent with the general trend in the Netherlands over this period. In 2021, Barendrecht had a population of 48,771, of which 23,231 were male (49.4%) and 23,825 female (50.6%). According to the civil registry, 21% of  its population were under the age of 14, 11% were between 15 and 24 years old, 27% were from 25 to 44, 28% were from 45 to 64 and 13% were 65 years of age or older. The marital status of the municipality was distributed such that 46% of its population was married, 45% never married, 6% divorced and 4% widowed. 26,08% of the population of Barendrecht was from foreign origin. The foreign origin of the municipality was 7,99% Western, 4% Suriname, 3% Turkey, 2% Morocco, 1% Dutch Caribbean and 8,81% from other countries. Barendrecht had 18,615 households in 2012 , this corresponds to an average of 2.5 persons per household. Of these households, 24% were made up of individuals, 30% were couples with no children under 18 living with them and 45% contained children under 18. Geography. Subdivisions. Municipalities are the lowest tier of public administration in the Netherlands. They are, however, further subdivided into districts ("wijken") and neighbourhoods ("buurten") for administrative use. Barendrecht is subdivided into 23 districts, of which 20 are residential, two rural and one all business parks combined. The latter three have the lowest population density and largest area of all districts. The district with the  highest population is Meerwede in Vinex-location Carnisselande, this district also has the highest population density. Each district is further subdivided in neighbourhoods. Some district consist of one neighbourhood, others consist of up to 14 neighbourhoods; the rural and business park districts are subdivided the most. The smallest neighbourhood has a size of , the largest spans . Some neighbourhoods are unpopulated; the largest population density for a neighbourhood in Barendrecht is . Sports. Barendrecht is home to two football clubs; BVV Barendrecht, which plays at the fourth level of the Dutch football pyramid, and VV Smitshoek which plays at the fifth tier  of the football pyramid. BVV Barendrecht won the KNVB Amateur Cup in the 2008–09 season, they were banned from the 2011–12 KNVB Cup after winning their first round matchup. In addition to these clubs there are also numerous other sport clubs, including organized badminton, basketball, handball, hockey, korfball, tennis, track and field, volleyball and water polo. Due to its proximity to Rotterdam, Barendrecht occasionally is the scene for road events starting or finishing in Rotterdam, it is the penultimate municipality on the route of the annual Paris-Rotterdam relay run. Athletes from Barendrecht have also had individual success, mostly notably  quadruple Olympic swimming champion Inge de Bruijn. She won four gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals in the freestyle and butterfly events at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. During her career she won a total of 36 medals in major competitions, 18 of these medals were gold. She has also held three world records in long course swimming. Several players on the Dutch water polo teams during the 1984 and 2000 Summer Olympics were from Barendrecht as well. Government. Barendrecht, as all Dutch municipalities, is ruled by both a board of mayor and aldermen and a  municipal council. The municipal council is elected every four years. The number of councillors varies over time due to changes in the municipal population. It is the highest administrative body in the municipality and controls public policy. The executive power lies with the executive board, which consists of a mayor and multiple aldermen. The mayor is appointed by the crown and the alderman are elected by the municipal council, typically after each municipal election. Thieu van de Wouw, member of the CDA party, was major of Barendrecht from 1989 to his retirement in 2005. Jan van Belzen was appointed as  mayor in July 2005, Van Belzen was mayor of Graafstroom before taking the same function in Barendrecht. In 2011 Van Belzen was appointed for another six-year term as mayor. The municipal council has traditionally been contested by national parties, the first local party was founded for the 2014 elections. The local representation per party typically changed with the national fortunes of these parties. The most recent municipal elections were held in 2014; the local party Our Interest Barendrecht won nine out of 29 seats, Christian Democratic Appeal won the largest share of the popular vote of all national parties  in that election. Most policy decisions by the municipality do not garner widespread attention. Barendrecht is faced with the same issues as other suburban municipalities in providing public services and managing land-use planning. To study industrial scale carbon capture and storage methods, large-scale demonstration projects have been suggested to study what happens – the safety and other effects can only be fully studied in large-scale experiments. In 2007 it was suggested to inject of carbon dioxide underground in former gas fields in Barendrecht. Earlier studies had suggested to avoid trials in densely populated areas, such as Barendrecht, to  eliminate the risk of a repeat of the Lake Nyos disaster. The suggestion to make Barendrecht a test site was met with local criticism, because of the experimental nature of the plan and because no ongoing monitoring of the fields would be performed. The municipal council of Barendrecht rejected the plan in June 2009 after their concerns were not met. The central government initially opted to overrule the council; they reversed their opinion in October 2010 and cancelled the plan. Infrastructure. Road. Two Dutch motorways pass through Barendrecht: Vaanplein, the interchange between the A15 and A29, is situated within the  borders of Barendrecht. Rail. A number of railways pass through Barendrecht: The nine tracks of all three of these lines, which run through the railway station, are covered over a length of 1.5 km (0.9 mi) to reduce the noise to the surrounding neighbourhoods. Nederlandse Spoorwegen services the station, with trains departing towards Dordrecht to the southeast and Rotterdam to the northwest four times an hour during the day during weekdays, reduced to two times an hour during the rest of the railways' normal service hours. A major junction between the three railway lines north of the station was the  site of a train accident in 2009. Two freight trains collided head on, killing one of the drivers and serious injuring another. A passenger train could not stop in time and collided with the wreckage. Local public transit. As a suburb of Rotterdam, commuters in Barendrecht have access to extensive local transport services operated by RET, whose tram line 25 runs north-south through the western part of Barendrecht with its southern terminus in Carnisselande. The tram runs to the Rotterdam Centraal railway station through the city centre and beyond to its northern terminus in Schiebroek. The RET also operates  several bus lines through Barendrecht: Arriva runs two additional bus lines: a line from city hall to the Heinenoord bus terminal, and a line from the Barendrecht railway station to the Zwijndrecht railway station.