Eindhoven ( ) is a municipality and a city located in the province of North Brabant in the south of the Netherlands, originally at the confluence of the Dommel and Gender streams. The Gender was dammed short of the city centre in the 1950s but the Dommel still runs through the city. The city had a population of 221,402 in 2014, making it the fifth-largest city of the Netherlands and the largest of North Brabant.
eindhoven has design it has science and it has industry
Name
The name Eindhoven derives from the contraction of the regional words eind (meaning last or end) and hove (or hoeve; a section of some 14 hectares of land). "Eind" is toponymically a common prefix and postfix in local place- and streetnames. A "hove" was a parcel of land that might be given in leasehold to private persons such as farmers by the local lord. Taken in conjunction with the fact that a string of such parcels existed around Woensel, the original location of Eindhoven may be understood to be "last hoves on the land of Woensel".
History
The written history of Eindhoven started in 1232, when Duke Hendrik I of Brabant granted city rights to Endehoven, then a small town right on the confluence of the Dommel and Gender streams. At the time of granting of its charter, Eindhoven had approximately 170 houses enclosed by a rampart. Just outside of the city walls stood a small castle. The city was also granted the right to organize a weekly market and the farmers in nearby villages were obliged to come to Eindhoven to sell their produce. Another factor in its establishment was its location on the trade route from Holland to Liege.
Around 1388, the citys fortifications were strengthened further. And between 1413 and 1420, a new castle was built within the city walls. In 1486, Eindhoven was plundered and burned by troops from Guelders.
Geography
Terrain map of the Eindhoven Region
The villages and city that make up modern Eindhoven were originally built on sandy elevations between the Dommel, Gender and Tongelreep streams. Beginning in the 19th century, the basins of the streams themselves have also been used as housing grounds, resulting in occasional floodings in the city centre. Partly to reduce flooding, the bed of the Gender stream, which flowed directly through the city centre, was dammed off and filled up after the War, and the course of the Dommel was regulated. New ecologial and socio-historical insights have led to parts of the Dommels course being restored to their original states, and plans to have the Gender flow through the centre once again (link to article in Dutch).
The large-scale housing developments of the 20th century saw residential areas being built on former agricultural lands and woods, former heaths that had been turned into cultivable lands in the 19th century.
The city is currently divided into seven districts:
Economy
Eindhoven has grown from a little town in 1232 to one of the biggest cities in the Netherlands with around 212,000 inhabitants in 2009. Much of its growth is due to Philips, DAF Trucks and Brabantia.
Culture and recreation
Culturally and recreationally, Eindhoven was formed by two forces:
Being a university city, Eindhoven has a large student population. The students from the Eindhoven University of Technology and a number of undergraduate schools give Eindhoven a young population, whose recreational needs are catered to by several different festivals, clubs and such.
For a long time Eindhoven was the main location of Philips. The Philips company undertook a lot of effort in the "cultural formation" of its workforce and has given the city both cultural institutions (such as the former POC and the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips) and sporting institutions (notably PSV).
Eindhoven is also known as the City of Light, due to the Company Philips originating there and because of the several projects involving lighting up buildings of the city. During Carnival, Eindhoven is rechristened Lampegat (Hamlet of Lamps, although for the ironic purposes of carnival the translation Hole in the ground with lamps is closer to the mark); this refers again to the important role of Philips in the Eindhoven community.
