Auniversity city since 1575, Leiden has been one ofEurope'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 housesLeiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, andLeiden University Medical Center. Leiden University is one of Europe's top universities, with thirteen Nobel Prize winners. It is a member of theLeague of European Research Universities and positioned highly in all international academic rankings. It is twinned withOxford, the location of the United Kingdom's oldestuniversity. Leiden University andLeiden 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 withBoerhaave.
Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. The painterRembrandt was born and educated in Leiden. Other Leiden painters includeLucas van Leyden,Jan van Goyen andJan Steen.
Leiden was formed on an artificial hill (today called theBurcht van Leiden) at the confluence of the riversOude and Nieuwe Rijn (Old and New Rhine). The settlement was calledLeithon. The name is from Germanic *leitha (canal).[8]
Leiden has erroneously been associated with the Roman outpostLugdunum 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, thecastellum was in fact closer to the town ofKatwijk, whereas the Roman settlement near Leiden was calledMatilo.[9]
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. ButJohn 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.
Leiden flourished in the 16th and 17th century. At the close of the 15th century, the weaving establishments of Leiden (mainlybroadcloth) were very important. In the same period, Leiden developed an important printing and publishing industry. PrintersLucas van Leyden andOtto van Veen lived here, and so didChristoffel Plantijn. One of Christoffel's pupils wasLodewijk Elzevir (1547–1617), who established the largest bookshop and printing works in Leiden, a business continued byhis descendants through 1712.
Relief of Leiden (1574), painting byOtto van Veen. Inundated meadows allow the Dutch fleet access to the Spanish infantry positions.
In 1572, the city sided with theDutch Revolt against Spanish rule and played an important role in theEighty Years' War. It wasbesieged 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 theUniversity 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.[10]
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.[16]
On 12 January 1807, acatastrophe struck the city when a boat loaded with 17,400 kg (38,360 lb) of gunpowder blew up in the middle of Leiden. 151 people were killed, over 2,000 were injured and some 220 homes were destroyed. KingLouis 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.[18]
In 1842, the railroad from Leiden toHaarlem was inaugurated and one year later the railway toThe Hague (Den Haag) was completed, resulting in some social and economic improvement. Perhaps the most important piece of Dutch history contributed by Leiden was theConstitution of the Netherlands.Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872) wrote the Dutch Constitution in April 1848 in his house at Garenmarkt 9 in Leiden.
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 thecanning and metal industries. DuringWorld War II, Leiden was hit hard by Allied bombardments. The areas surrounding the railway station and Marewijk were almost completely destroyed.
The city's biggest and most popular annual festival is celebrated on 3 October and is called simply3 Oktober. The people of Leiden celebrate the end of the Spanish siege of 1574.[21] It typically takes place over the course of two to three days and includes parades, ahutspot feast, historical reenactments, a funfair and other events. Since 2006, the city has also hosted the annualLeiden International Film Festival.[22]
Leiden has important functions as a shopping and trade centre for communities around the city.
The city also houses theEurotransplant, the international organization responsible for the mediation and allocation oforgan donation procedures in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Leiden also houses the headquarters ofAirbus, a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide. The group includesAirbus, the leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft worldwide.
The two branches of theOude Rijn, which enter Leiden on the east, unite in the centre of the city. The city is further intersected by numerous smallcanals with tree-borderedquays. On the west side of the city, theHortus Botanicus and other gardens extend along the oldSingel, or outer canal. TheLeidse Hout park, which contains a small deer park, lies on the northwest border withOegstgeest. TheVan der Werf Park is named after the mayorPieter Adriaansz. van der Werff [nl], who defended the city against the Spaniards in 1574. The city was beleaguered for months and many died from famine. The open space for the park was formed by theaccidental explosion of a ship loaded withgunpowder in 1807, which destroyed hundreds of houses, including that of the Elsevier family ofprinters.
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 awall poem project active from 1992, and still ongoing.[23][24]
At the strategically important junction of the two arms of the Oude Rijn stands the oldcastlede Burcht, a circular tower built on an earthen mound. The mound probably was a refuge against high water before a small wooden fortress was built on top of it in the 11th century. The citadel is a so-calledmotte-and-bailey castle.[25] Of Leiden's oldcity gates only two are left, theZijlpoort and theMorspoort,[26] both dating from the end of the 17th century. Apart from one small watch tower on the Singel nothing is left of the town'scity walls. Another formerfortification is theGravensteen. Built as afortress in the 13th century it has since served as house, library and prison.[27] Presently it is one of the university's buildings.
The chief of Leiden's numerous churches are theHooglandse Kerk (or the church ofSt Pancras, built in the 15th century and containing a monument to Pieter Adriaansz. van der Werff) and thePieterskerk (church ofSt Peter (1315)) with monuments toScaliger,Boerhaave and other scholars. From a historical perspective theMarekerk is interesting too.Arent van 's Gravesande designed that church in 1639. Other fine examples of his work in Leiden are in theStedelijk Museum De Lakenhal (the municipal museum of fine arts), and theBibliotheca Thysiana. The growing city needed another church and theMarekerk was the first Protestant church to be built in Leiden (and in Holland) after theReformation. It is an example ofDutch Classicism. In the drawings by Van 's Gravesande thepulpit is the centrepiece of the church. The pulpit is modelled after the one in theNieuwe Kerk at Haarlem (designed byJacob van Campen). The building was first used in 1650, and is still in use. TheHeilige Lodewijkkerk is first catholic church in Leiden that was built after the Reformation. This church was given to the Catholics after the gunpowder explosion in 1807, which killed 150 inhabitants and destroyed a large part of the city centre.[28][29] The 'Waalse Kerk' (Breestraat 63) was originally part of the Katharina Hospital. In 1584 it became the church of Protestant refugees from the Southern Netherlands (Brugge) and France. Later churches in the centre include theSt. Joseph inexpressionistic style.
The city centre contains many buildings that are in use by theUniversity of Leiden. TheAcademy Building is housed in a former 16th-centuryconvent. Among the institutions connected with the university are the national institution for East Indian languages,ethnology andgeography; the botanical gardens, founded in 1587; theobservatory (1860); the museum of antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden); and theethnographical museum, of whichP.F. von Siebold's Japanese collection was the nucleus (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde). This collection is now housed in a separate museum called theSieboldHuis. The Bibliotheca Thysiana occupies an oldRenaissance building of the year 1655. It is especially rich in legal works andvernacular chronicles. Noteworthy are also the many special collections atLeiden University Library among which those of theSociety of Dutch Literature (1766) and the collection of casts and engravings. In recent years the university has built theLeiden Bio Science Park at the city's outskirts to accommodate the Science departments.[citation needed]
Stadhuis (City Hall), a 16th-century building that was badly damaged by a fire in 1929 but has its Renaissance façade designed byLieven de Key still standing
Heilige Geest Weeshuis (a formerHoly Spirit Orphanage) – a complex of 16th century buildings.
Molen de Valk – a corn-grinding windmill, now home to a museum (1743)
Pesthuis, which was built during 1657–1661 at that time just outside the city for curing patients suffering thebubonic plague. However, after it was built the feared disease did not occur in the Netherlands anymore so it was never used for its original purpose. The building has been used as a military hospital, prison, national asylum and army museum. Until 2019, it served as the entrance ofNaturalis. This museum, one of the largestnatural history museums in the world, was recently renovated and is a building of interest in itself.[30]
The former residence of Leiden's master carpenter at the Stadstimmerwerf (city carpenter's or construction yard), open to the public and in use as an art gallery.
Local bus service in Leiden is provided byQbuzz under contract to the province of Zuid-Holland. Qbuzz took over the service fromArriva in December 2024.[31]
Air travel is served by the nearestSchiphol Airport which is approximately 31 km northeast of Leiden.NS operates direct train services between Leiden Centraal and Schiphol stations.
Nina Foch (1924–2008), Dutch American actress and drama teacher[53]
Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008), Dutch composer, performer, inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments and artistic director ofSTEIM 1981-2008
Leoni Jansen (born 1955), TV personality and anchor-woman, singer and stage-director[54]
Daniel Reuss (born 1961), Dutch conductor, primarily a choral conductor
Isa Hoes (born 1967), Dutch actress and voice actress[55]
The coat of arms of Leiden is two red keys, crossed in an X-shape on a white background. These keys are theKeys of Heaven held by St. Peter, for whom a large church in the city centre is named. Because of this coat of arms, Leiden is referred to as the"Sleutelstad" ("the key city").[67]
For a time Leiden held the title "The Coldest Place on Earth" because of the developments incryogenics in a laboratory there.Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1913Nobel Prize in Physics) liquefiedhelium for the first time (1908), and later managed to reach a temperature of less than one degree aboveAbsolute zero.
The Norwegian cheese "nøkkelost" ("key cheese") is named after the keys in coat of arms of Leyden, as it is a variation ofLeyden cheese.
The following places and things are named after this city:
Leiden'sStadhuis (Town Hall) has a poem in the form of acryptogram on its façade that records the date 1574 inRoman numerals, the year of the "Black Famine" or Spanish siege (W equals two Vs):
The poem on Leiden's Stadhuis
Nae zWarte HVnger-noot GebraCht had tot de doot bInaest zes-dVIzentMensChen; aLst god den heerVerdroot gaf hIVnsWeder broot zoVeeLWICVnstenWensChen.
(Dutch: "When the Black Famine had brought to the death nearly six thousand persons, then God the Lord repented, and gave bread again as much as we could wish".)[69]
Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden is the basketball club of Leiden. In 2011, 2013 and 2021 they won the National Title, in 2010 and 2012 the National Cup and in 2011 and 2012 the National Super Cup. The club also played in theFIBA EuroChallenge and reached the Second Round (Best 16) in 2011/2012.
^"Postcodetool for 2312AT".Actueel Hoogtebestand Nederland (in Dutch). Het Waterschapshuis. Archived fromthe original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved8 August 2013.
^"The Netherlands and the Berne Convention".The Publishers' circular and booksellers' record of British and foreign literature, Vol. 71. Sampson Low, Marston & Co. 1899. p. 597.Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved29 August 2010.
^"Miasta bliźniacze Torunia" [Toruń's twin towns].Urząd Miasta Torunia [City of Toruń Council] (in Polish).Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved22 August 2013.
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