GRATIS EEN
NIEUWSBRIEF AANVRAGEN
Did you know that Leeuwarden is a town full of culture? It has historical buildings and lots of opportunities to attend cultural activities. Theatre, stand -up comedy, theatre sports, opera, music café… Leeuwarden is bursting with culture.
Would you like to know a bit more about the history of the town in which you attend college? We will give you a short introduction.
Leeuwarden was generated from three ‘terps’ on the shore of the Zuyderzee. ‘Terps’ are artificially created mounds. People built houses on them to keep their feet dry. People have been living here even before the year 1000 AD. From the tenth century on, this farming community also began to trade. The town’s location near the Zuyderzee was perfect for this. There were commercial ties with countries as far away as Russia. This is how Leeuwarden gradually developed into a town. However, in the thirteenth century the Zuyderzee became silted up. From then on, there was only regional trading.
In 1435, Leeuwarden was enfranchised and it became the provincial capital in 1504, when central government and the judiciary were established here. In addition to this, Leeuwarden became the residence of the Frisian ‘stadhouders’. The town began to flourish. The number of inhabitants rose spectacularly: from five thousand round about the year 1500 AD up to sixteen thousand in 1650 AD.