City in North Holland, Netherlands
IJmuiden
(
Dutch pronunciation:
[??i?mœyd?(n)]
) is a
port city
in the
Dutch
province of
North Holland
. It is the main town in the municipality of
Velsen
which lies mainly to the south-east. Including its
large sea locks
, it straddles the
mouth
of the
North Sea Canal
to
Amsterdam
. To the south
it abuts a large reserve of plant-covered
dunes, the
Zuid-Kennemerland National Park
. The city is on the south bank; the north bank is otherwise a
steel plant
and
Velsen-Noord
.
It is 10 kilometres (6 mi) north northwest of
Haarlem
which is 18 kilometres (11 mi) due west of Amsterdam.
The port is a
deepwater port
suited to fully laden
Panamax ships
, and fourth port of the Netherlands.
The
internal capitalization
within IJmuiden is as
IJ
is a
digraph
in modern
Dutch
so in some typefaces recognised as a
ligature
which places it in one typed or handwritten space.
History
[
edit
]
In the
Roman era
, the district was already inhabited, and archaeological finds at the
impoldered
lake of
Wijkermeer
[3]
indicate there was a
North Sea
port of some regional importance built here.
[4]
Present day IJmuiden includes four harbors: the
vissershaven
(Ship's code IJM),
a fishing dock
(visafslag), the
haringhaven
, the
IJmondhaven
and the Seaport Marina IJmuiden, a harbour for pleasure craft. IJmuiden became the largest fishing port of the Netherlands after the island of
Urk
became closed in by the
Afsluitdijk
. The town suffered heavy damage and demolition during
World War II
, because of its
maritime
importance.
IJ-mouth
[
edit
]
Before IJmuiden was built, the area was known as
Breesaap
, a desolate
plain
where a handful of farming families strove to make a living.
Plans to connect
Amsterdam
with a canal to the
North 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 the
North Sea Canal
was officially opened by
William III of the Netherlands
, shortcutting
Amsterdam
'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, the
paddle steamer
Stad Breda
built by the
Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland
, passed, the first ship from Amsterdam, the
SS Rembrandt
built by the
Royal 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 the
IJ
", which is a hint to the importance the town has for the
Amsterdam
harbour. The name first appeared, as
IJ-muiden
, in lines written in 1848 by the
professor
and
journalist
(and, later, a
liberal
finance minister
in the
Van Lynden van Sandenburg
Cabinet
) Simon Vissering. The present
IJmuiden
form was eventually adopted in 1876, as the
North Sea Canal
was being completed in this section.
In 1890 it had about 1,500 inhabitants, but boomed when the
Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens steelworks
settled in IJmuiden in 1918. At that time shipping was at a low, because during
World War I
minesweepers laid mines nearby.
[6]
The entry to the canal needed constant dredging due to the
littoral 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]
Second World War
[
edit
]
After the
German
invasion of the Netherlands
on 10 May 1940, the
Dutch Royal family left the country
from IJmuiden in the late evening of 12 May. Some were on board the British
destroyer
HMS
Codrington
, while
Queen Wilhelmina
left on board
HMS
Hereward
. The
quays
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 called
Festung 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 their
schnellboote
(fast torpedo boats, known to the
Allies
as
E-boats
)
[9]
and
Biber
midget submarines
.
[10]
The older structure, codename
Schnellbootbunker AY (SBB1)
, was protected by a 10-foot (3.0 m) thick concrete roof.
[9]
The newer one, codename
Schnellbootbunker 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 after
D-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 by
No. 9 Squadron
and
No. 617 Squadron
of the
Royal Air Force
. These saw 53 five-ton,
Tallboy
earthquake bombs
dropped.
[11]
[12]
There were also two attacks in 1945 by the
American air force
with rocket-powered
Disney 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 the
Bunker Museum IJmuiden
(in Dutch)
. The city is also mentioned in
The Diary of Anne Frank
.
North Holland's gate to the North Sea
[
edit
]
After the war, the town was rebuilt according to a plan by the architect
Willem 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 the
equidistantly set
UK-Netherlands
sea boundary
. The law discounts the projection of
Europoort
, the natural end of which, Hook of Holland (
Hœk van Holland
), forms a southern measurement point.
[13]
The
North Sea Canal
connects the North Sea with the
IJ Bay
in
Amsterdam
, and the importance of this ship canal has been recognized with the introduction of the "Holland Route" along the canal by the
European Route of Industrial Heritage
(ERIH). The places to see on this route are the
Hoogovensmuseum
, the system of sluice gates at the mouth of the canal, and the
Zee- 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 the
Velsen
Municipality 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 Sea
locks
. 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
serve a route between
Amsterdam
and
Newcastle
(
Port of Tyne
) via IJmuiden. A new
roll-on/roll-off
ferry route between IJmuiden and
Great 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 a
yacht
race which takes place annually. The event covers a distance of 210
nautical miles
(390 km; 240 mi) and starts in
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
, in England and finishes in IJmuiden.
Gallery
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- Citations
- ^
a
b
c
"Kerncijfers wijken en buurten 2021"
.
Central Bureau of Statistics
. Retrieved
2 May
2022
.
three entries
- ^
"Postcodetool for 1791AA"
.
Actueel Hoogtebestand Nederland
(in Dutch). Het Waterschapshuis. 24 July 2019
. Retrieved
2 May
2022
.
- ^
"Cruise 2 Holland"
.
www.cruise2holland.com
.
- ^
"Hotel Prinsenhof and IJmuiden; facts and figures"
. Archived from
the original
on 5 May 2012
. Retrieved
28 April
2012
.
- ^
W. Moojen: '125 jaar Noordzeekanaal' in: 'DBW' jrg. 59 nr. 9 (2001)
- ^
Dewar, Alfred (1922).
"Minesweeping and Minelaying"
. In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.).
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 31 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. pp. 949?995.
- ^
Vernon-Harcourt, Leveson Francis (1911).
"Harbour"
. In
Chisholm, Hugh
(ed.).
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 937.
- ^
Combat bulletins CB n°57: Activities in ETO-Disney swish
. Wikimedia Commons: US Army Pictorial Service. 1945.
- ^
a
b
c
Flower 2004
, p. 203
- ^
a
b
Flower 2004
, p. 301
- ^
Flower 2004
, Appendix A
- ^
Bateman 2009
, p. 92
- ^
Lowe, Vaughan (1997).
The United Kingdom and the law of the sea
. Martinus Nijhoff. p. 549.
ISBN
9041103260
.
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.
- ^
Dutch daily ferry link a step closer
(Business Weekly, December 12, 2001)
Archived
3 May 2008 at the
Wayback Machine
- Bibliography
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IJmuiden
.
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