Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the west of the country. With a population of 825,080 as of 2016, the city is the northern part of the Randstadt city complex, the sixth largest metropolis in Europe.

The name of the city comes from the phrase “Amstel dam” and shows how the city originated: the dam on the river Amstel was on the site of today’s Dam Square. The city was a small fishing village at the end of the twelfth century, and during the Dutch Golden Age it became one of the most important port cities in the world. At the time, it was a leading center for finance and the diamond trade. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the city greatly expanded, forming new districts and suburbs.

The city is the financial and cultural capital of the Netherlands. It is home to the headquarters of many major Dutch institutions and is home to seven of the largest 500 companies in the world, including Philips and ING. Amsterdam Stock Exchange, part of the pan-European company Euronext, is located in the heart of the city. The main attractions of Amsterdam (and this is what is primarily meant when mentioning the attractions of the Netherlands), which besides its canals, are the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House, the red light districts and many coffee shops, attracting 4.2 million tourists every year.

Climate and weather in Amsterdam
The city is in a temperate climate zone, greatly influenced by its proximity to the North Sea to the west with prevailing northwest winds and gusts of gusts. Winters are mild, with temperatures rarely dropping below 0°C. Frosts only occur when cold air masses move in from the depths of the European continent, namely from the Scandinavian countries and Russia, including even Siberia. And even then, thanks to Amsterdam being surrounded on three sides by large masses of water, and to a large extent due to the urban heat island effect, night-time temperatures rarely drop below -5°C, while in Hilversum, 25 kilometers southeast, they drop to -12°C in such cases. Summers are moderately warm but not hot.

The average maximum temperature in August is 22°C, and 30°C or higher occurs on no more than three days. Days with measurable rainfall are very common, averaging 175 days a year. However, the average annual precipitation in Amsterdam does not exceed 760 mm. Mostly precipitation is in the form of fine drizzle or light rain, with cloudy and wet days occurring more often during the cooler months, from October to March. Only occasionally a European cyclone with heavy precipitation is possible; in such cases, water needs to be pumped to higher ground, or to the seas surrounding the city.