IJmuiden | |
|---|---|
City | |
 Satellite photo of IJmuiden and Velsen area | |
 Within North Holland; and the Netherlands (inset, left) | |
 IJmuiden in themunicipality of Velsen | |
| Coordinates:52°27′31″N4°37′10″E / 52.45861°N 4.61944°E /52.45861; 4.61944 | |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Province | North Holland |
| Municipality | Velsen |
| Area | |
• Total | 12.91 km2 (4.98 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 1.9 m (6.2 ft) |
| Population | |
• Total | 32,360 |
| • Density | 2,500/km2 (6,500/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC+1 (CET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+2 (CEST) |
| Postal code | 1970-1976[1] |
| Dialing code | 0255 |
IJmuiden (Dutch pronunciation:[ɛiˈmœydə(n)]) is aport city in theDutch province ofNorth Holland. It is the main town in the municipality ofVelsen which lies mainly to the south-east. Including itslarge sea locks, it straddles themouth of theNorth Sea Canal toAmsterdam. To the southit abuts a large reserve of plant-covered dunes, theZuid-Kennemerland National Park. The city is on the south bank; the north bank is otherwise asteel plant andVelsen-Noord.
It is 10 kilometres (6 mi) north northwest ofHaarlem which is 18 kilometres (11 mi) due west of Amsterdam.
The port is adeepwater port suited to fully ladenPanamax ships, and the fourth port of the Netherlands.
Theinternal capitalization within IJmuiden is asIJ is adigraph in modernDutch with an exceptional spelling convention. Also, in some typefaces,IJ is recognised as aligature and is placed in one typed or handwritten space.
In theRoman era, the district was already inhabited, and archaeological finds at theimpoldered lake ofWijkermeer[3] indicate there was aNorth Sea port of some regional importance built here.[4] Present day IJmuiden includes four harbors: thevissershaven (Ship's code IJM),a fishing dock (visafslag), theharinghaven, theIJmondhaven and the Seaport Marina IJmuiden, a harbour for pleasure craft. IJmuiden became the largest fishing port of the Netherlands after the island ofUrk became closed in by theAfsluitdijk. The town suffered heavy damage and demolition duringWorld War II, because of itsmaritime importance.
Before IJmuiden was built, the area was known asBreesaap, a desolateplain where a handful of farming families strove to make a living.
Plans to connectAmsterdam with a canal to theNorth Sea, with its mouth in this area, had been drawn up already since 1626, but were only set into motion in the 19th century, when in 1851 the whole area was sold to the entrepreneurs Bik and Arnold. Ground was broken on 8 April 1865.
IJmuiden is the newest city in North Holland. It was founded on 1 November 1876, when theNorth Sea Canal was officially opened byWilliam III of the Netherlands, shortcuttingAmsterdam's harbours' passage to the sea. He dubbed the town IJmuiden after passing the locks from the North Sea into the canal. After his ship, thepaddle steamerStad Breda built by theStoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland, passed, the first ship from Amsterdam, theSS Rembrandt built by theRoyal Netherlands Steamship Company (KNSM), passed the other way.[5] The workers who dug the canal later settled there; they found work after the canal was finished in the fishing industry, but many also suffered extreme poverty.
The IJmuiden name literally means "mouth of theIJ", which is a hint to the importance the town has for theAmsterdam harbour. The name first appeared, asIJ-muiden, in lines written in 1848 by theprofessor andjournalist (and, later, aliberalfinance minister in theVan Lynden van SandenburgCabinet) Simon Vissering. The presentIJmuiden form was eventually adopted in 1876, as theNorth Sea Canal was being completed in this section.
In 1890 it had about 1,500 inhabitants, but boomed when theKoninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens steelworks settled in IJmuiden in 1918. At that time shipping was at a low, because duringWorld War I minesweepers laid mines nearby.[6] The entry to the canal needed constant dredging due to thelittoral drift in both directions on an open, sandy coast: due to winds blowing alternately from opposite quarters, sand accumulates in the sheltered angles outside the harbour between each converging breakwater and the shore.[7]
After theGermaninvasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, theDutch Royal family left the country from IJmuiden in the late evening of 12 May. Some were on board the BritishdestroyerHMS Codrington, whileQueen Wilhelmina left on boardHMS Hereward. Thequays at IJmuiden were crowded at that time with people desperate to be transported across the channel, sometimes at great expense. During the Nazi German occupation, the canal was out of operation and the Germans destroyed most of IJmuiden to create what they calledFestung IJmuiden (literally "fortress", a heavily defended zone, from which the civilian population had been removed.
IJmuiden became the site of two separate fortified pens constructed by the German navy (Kriegsmarine) to house theirschnellboote (fast torpedo boats, known to theAllies asE-boats)[9] andBibermidget submarines.[10] The older structure, codenameSchnellbootbunker AY (SBB1), was protected by a 10-foot (3.0 m) thick concrete roof.[9] The newer one, codenameSchnellbootbunker BY (SBB2), had 10–12 feet (3.0–3.7 m) of concrete, with a further 2–4-foot (0.6–1.2 m) layer separated by an air–gap.[i]
The E-boats laid up in the shelters during the day, safe from air attack, and put to sea under cover of night to attack Allied shipping.[9] The pens were priority targets afterD-day as the torpedo boats they protected were a great threat to the supply lines serving Allied forces. They were subjected to repeated air attack. This included four attacks byNo. 9 Squadron andNo. 617 Squadron of theRoyal Air Force. These saw 53 five-ton,Tallboyearthquake bombs dropped.[11][12] There were also two attacks in 1945 by theAmerican air force with rocket-poweredDisney bombs, specialist weapons designed to penetrate fortified, concrete bunkers that could resist conventional bombs. IJmuiden was liberated by the Allies on 4 May 1945.
The story of IJmuiden during the war is told in theBunker Museum IJmuiden(in Dutch). The city is also mentioned inThe Diary of Anne Frank.
After the war, the town was rebuilt according to a plan by the architectWillem Marinus Dudok. The statistical area IJmuiden, which includes the surrounding countryside, has a population of 30,466. The headquarters of the KNRM,Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution is against the canal. The harbour coastline remains a measuring point for the northern extremes of theequidistantly set UK-Netherlandssea boundary. The law discounts the projection ofEuropoort, the natural end of which, Hook of Holland (Hoek van Holland), forms a southern measurement point.[13]
TheNorth Sea Canal connects the North Sea with theIJ Bay inAmsterdam, and the importance of this ship canal has been recognized with the introduction of the "Holland Route" along the canal by theEuropean Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH). The places to see on this route are theHoogovensmuseum, the system of sluice gates at the mouth of the canal, and theZee- en Havenmuseum in IJmuiden. IJmuiden is home to two of the world's most powerful water pumps capable of pumping 60,000 litres (13,000 imp gal; 16,000 US gal) per second.
Besides theVelsenMunicipality Hall(Raadhuis van de gemeente Velsen), designed by the architect Willem Dudok as a centerpiece to his plan for a new IJmuiden, important sights in IJmuiden are the North Sealocks. The latter are among the largest in the world and one set is able to close off a shipping lane 50 metres (160 ft) wide and 12 metres (39 ft) deep. There are plans to enlarge or build a new set to facilitate passage for even larger vessels.
DFDS Seaways operate a route betweenAmsterdam andNewcastle (Port of Tyne) via IJmuiden. A newroll-on/roll-off ferry route between IJmuiden andGreat Yarmouth in the United Kingdom was considered.[14] Any plans in that direction appear to have been abandoned by the relevant authorities.
The North Sea Race is ayacht race which takes place annually. The event covers a distance of 210nautical miles (390 km; 240 mi) and starts inScarborough, North Yorkshire, in England and finishes in IJmuiden.
three entries
The UK-Netherlands .. boundary is notable because it uses the permanent harbour works at IJmuiden as part of the Dutch baselines, but was not modified to take account of the subsequent building of the Europoort facility on the Dutch coast.
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