It is odd, really. The Dutch government sits in The Hague, and the king lives there too. And yet Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. How can that be? The answer starts, how could it be otherwise, with the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
A king for Holland
In 1806 Napoleon put an end to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and laid the foundations of the Kingdom of Holland. He put his brother Louis Napoleon on the throne. And where the king lives, so the reasoning went, is the capital. So when Louis Napoleon lived in Utrecht for a while, and briefly in The Hague, each of those became the capital in turn. In the end, on 20 April 1808, he chose Amsterdam, and the stately city hall on the Dam got a new job: royal palace.
The French leave, the capital stays
The French were driven out of the country in 1813, but the kingdom survived. In 1815 a Dutch monarch took over: King William I of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He kept Amsterdam as the capital, but felt The Hague should keep its role as the seat of government. Quite unusual, because almost everywhere else in the world the city where the government sits is also the capital. Amsterdam and The Hague have shared the honour ever since.
And where the king lives is the capital. The reasoning was as simple as that.
The logic behind Amsterdam's status as capital
Only on paper in 1983
We saved the most remarkable part for last: although Amsterdam had been the capital since 1808, this was only officially written into the Dutch Constitution in 1983. For centuries it was really a kind of unspoken agreement. The king still receives state guests in the Royal Palace on the Dam, but the governing is done in The Hague, a down-to-earth Dutch division of labour that the world rarely sees.
More royal Amsterdam? Read about the name behind Willemsparkweg (yes, King William I), how Queen's Day became King's Day, and about the eventful remembrance ceremonies on the Dam.
- 01Legend has it that Louis Napoleon's Dutch was so poor that he introduced himself as 'Ik ben uw konijn' (I am your rabbit) instead of 'uw koning' (your king). The Amsterdammers loved him for it.
- 02The palace was built as a city hall by Jacob van Campen and rests on no fewer than 13,659 wooden piles. Easy to remember: the number of days in a year (365) with a 1 in front and a 9 behind.
- 03Amsterdam is the capital, but the government, parliament and the king are all based in The Hague, which is almost unique in the world.
- 04On the roof turns a weather vane in the shape of a cog ship, the age-old symbol of the city.
