On 27 October 2025, the city of Amsterdam celebrates its 750th birthday, and it wanted to be sure this special event won’t go unnoticed! The festivities began in October 2024 and will last a full year, with many events planned to mark this remarkable milestone. It’s a well-rounded number, after all; the city is getting older, even though is still young compared to others. The slogan of the celebration is “Amsterdam. Forever (Voor altijd)…” inviting you to fill in whatever Amsterdam means for you. Many people, born here, moving here or simply visiting, have a special place in their heart for this city. For me, Amsterdam will forever be a city like no other; a city that had my heart since the first time I rolled my troller from Central Station towards Rembrandtplein, not knowing that only a few years later it will become my home.

Summary of this article:

1. Why is Amsterdam’s birthday on 27 October?
2. What does Amsterdam 750 means for you
3. Special events for Amsterdam 750
4. Books to read about Amsterdam
5. Amsterdamian’s special celebration
6. Changes in Amsterdam in the last few years
7. A special gift for Amsterdam lovers.

Why is Amsterdam’s birthday on 27 October?

Amsterdam, on its original name Amestelledamme, marks its birthday based on the first official document to mention its name (and not based on when it received city rights, which was in 1306). This document, called the Tolprivilege (Toll Privilege), from 27 October 1275, is kept in the Treasury of the Amsterdam City Archives (Stadsarchief Amsterdam). It is a piece of parchment signed by Count Floris V of Holland, who grants to “the people who live near the dam in the Amstel”, or “the inhabitants of Amsterdam” (“homines manentes apud Amestelledamme”) toll-freedom within his seigneury, as compensation for the damage which they suffered from him and his subjects. The Tolprivilege is brought up from the storage and shown to the public a few days each year, on the city’s birthday.

But the settlement mentioned in this paper existed in the area since around 1170 (as far as we know), even though not mentioned by name in other documents.

” The people who lived through Amsterdam’s history have vanished. Nobody can tell their stories; nevertheless, dumb witnesses to what happened still exist in their thousands. Time and again small fragments are released from the silent archive. Beneath the foundation of an old house in the Warmoesstraat, next to the red-light district of the Oudekerksplein, building workers found a barely deteriorated layer of fourteenth-century cow dung and straw, and a pair of bone skates, remnants of the time when the Warmoesstraat was still a dyke, and Amsterdam a little village on the IJ. […] By the Herengracht, close to the Leidsestraat, excavations for a new bank laid bare a bizarre combination of objects: the lower beams of an old mill; a silver medallion bearing a rose-shaped cameo; several skeletons; a horn ointment press; smelling bottles; a medieval stone wall lamp; a single lady’s shoe. […] Dig deeper still, however, and all of a sudden one encounters little but silence and the murmur of reeds along the banks of the Amstel. Where, around 1325, there was a solid city complete with harbour and fleet, houses and churches, workers, whores and burgomasters, only one and a half centuries earlier there had been nothing at all.”

– writes Geert Mak in his “Amsterdam. A brief life of the city”.

There are two legends about the city’s birth: one speaks of a Norwegian prince who founded the settlement in gratitude for having his life saved by the gods, while the other credits a hunter and a fisherman, who were advised by a heron to build here as a solution to their worries about the future. There are also many stories, some more or less real, that we get from the 750 years of the city’s existence, and it’s a pleasure to read about them if you are interested in Amsterdam’s history. I’ll recommend a couple of resources below.

What does Amsterdam 750 means for you

If you live in Amsterdam, or you plan on visiting this year, there are many events, big and small, that you can attend. From museum exhibitions to neighbourhood parties and from quizzes to a party on a highway, there’s a lot going on this year.

However, this celebration is for everyone, not only for those living in Amsterdam; everyone who had their heart touched at some point by this amazing city can celebrate even from afar. The Amsterdam 750 platform started a project called 750 stories “for and by Amsterdammers, Weespers and everyone who carries the city in their hearts”, which you can read on their website.

If you can’t attend the events in person, you can still read about them on the various platforms, including this blog, where I will share as much as possible. You could read books about Amsterdam and its people, fiction or not. You could listen to its music, watch movies about it, and so on and so forth.

Special events for Amsterdam 750

• SAIL Amsterdam – a major maritime event held every five years in the Netherlands, usually in August. It is one of the largest nautical events in the world, featuring a parade of tall ships, naval vessels, and historic boats. This will be the 50th anniversary of Sail ( first organised in 1975). It’s the most spectacular of Amsterdam’s events (and there are a few serious competitors to this title!). Large ships and various other special vessels will sail across the IJ and dock near the city center. For the last edition in 2015 (we skipped the 2020 because of the pandemic), over 600 ships sailed into the North Sea Canal to dock in Amsterdam’s IJhaven, and we can expect even more in 2025! Can you imagine? There are many events planned for SAIL 2025. Throughout the event, the city centre area will be divided into zones or “Oceans”, each hosting themed events, so even if you aren’t out on the water, there’s lots to do.

• Big Party on the Ring A10. On Saturday, 21 June, the city will close a 15-kilometre part of the A10 highway, and it will transform it into a party zone. There will be music, sports, theatre, dance, and much more, including marriages and civil partnerships officiated here.

• ToekomstTiendaagse – ten days of various events to think about the city’s future.

• Closing the vault at Oudekerk – on 8 February 2025, one hundred Amsterdam residents will place one hundred city vases created by artist Navid Nuur in the Iron Chappel in Oudekerk. This is Amsterdam’s historic city vault, where the city’s most important document were stored for centuries. Each year from now on, one vase will be actioned every year, until 2125. These vases carry the soul of Amsterdam. The artist crafted them in the Oude Kerk, and then he took them into the city, rolling them against facades, doors, bridges, imprinting the vases with literal impressions of the city. He collected the glaze for the vases from across Amsterdam. Other materials included shells from the IJ, glass from cafés, charcoal from a kebab shop, ash from a pizzeria, and silt from the canals.

• 24 Hours Amsterdam. There will be a few special editions of 24 Hours Amsterdam in 2025. Each edition will have a certain neighbourhood in the spotlight, giving visitors the chance to discover places in that area (museums, theatres, schools etc).

• Various exhibitions take place at the City Archive, among which one starting in March “The birth of the city: a journey to medieval Amsterdam”, which will showcase recent archaeological and historical research to paint the image of Medieval Amsterdam.

• Cruyff Street League – the biggest street football tournament of Amsterdam, for boys and girls age 10-15.

• TSC Amsterdam Marathon – on 19 October 2025. There are various routes you can run, including a full marathon, a half marathon, an 8 km route and also a kids’ run.

• Happy Birthday Amsterdam at H’Art Museum. Until 16 March 2025, H’Art Museum houses an exhibition dedicated to the 750th anniversary of Amsterdam: Happy Birthday Amsterdam. The museum brings an homage to the city by displaying the work of 75 artists from the past and present. After this, the museum will continue its celebration with two remarkable exhibitions. The first will focus on 17th-century Amsterdam, featuring 75 masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, including 17 works by Rembrandt. Later, after the summer, a collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris will bring an exhibition dedicated to the renowned Romanian sculptor Brâncuși to Amsterdam.

• Amsterdam Women: an ode at the Amsterdam Museum. This exhibition wants to challenge the history books that are dominated by the male perspective by exploring the often-overlooked stories of women who have shaped the city throughout its history and paying a tribute to them. If you can’t visit the exhibition (until 31 August 2025), you can read the odes on the museum’s website.

These are only a few of the events, and you can check out the entire agenda on IAmsterdam. Aside from the events, there are various actions to mark the occasion, like:

• PostNL launches five stamps for the jubilee. The stamps, designed by Amsterdam-based designer Michiel Schuurman, can be found in the shops for only 6 euro.
• The Amsterdam municipality is giving a gift to each new baby registered in the city – an Amsterdam 750 cuddly blanket!

Books to read about Amsterdam

“Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City” by Geert Mak. A short, accessible history of Amsterdam, covering its medieval origins to its rise as a world trade center. A very nice read.

“Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City” by Russell Shorto. A thorough exploration of Amsterdam’s historical role in shaping ideas of freedom, tolerance, and democracy.

“The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. The famous diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl hiding in Amsterdam during World War II, which offers insight into the city’s wartime history.

“The Miniaturist” by Jessie Burton. Set in 17th-century Amsterdam, the novel follows the life of a young bride who uncovers secrets in her new household.

“The Coffee Trader” by David Liss. A historical novel set in 1659 Amsterdam, dealing with the city’s mercantile world and the introduction of coffee as a commodity.

Amsterdamian’s special celebration

I will join the 750 celebration by doing a special challenge: 750 articles on the Amsterdamian blog, my way to mark the special anniversary of the city that inspired me to start this blog. There are a little over 710 articles on the blog now, and I challenge myself to reach 750 by October. If that happens quicker, that’s also ok. They won’t all be articles about Amsterdam, but most of them will.

For me, this jubilee year is a special occasion to celebrate a city that I love, to learn more about its history, about its past and present. Learning about the life of a city in the past is so cool, especially a city that is relatively new to you, a city in a country that is not your birth country, built by a people that is not your people, with a culture that differs from yours. I like to imagine how Amsterdam would have looked like when it had a defence wall, a castle, when the Central Station was not yet built and the ships would float moored right at the edge of the city, when there was water going all the way to Dam Square and there were many more canals than today. The city changed a lot over time, as it was normal, but it also remained the same in many ways.

Changes in Amsterdam in the last few years

In the 14 years I’ve lived here, I have witnessed a few changes myself.

• Shifting the talk about slavery in the Rijksmuseum. The famous Rijksmuseum made a big move in 2021, opening an exhibition about slavery. Slavery is a big part of the Dutch history, one that wasn’t talked about much in museums. Some of the works in the Rijksmuseum’s permanent collection have links with the Netherlands’ slavery past. However, the labels next to them had no mention of those links. That’s why the museum added 77 labels to talk about the colonial past of the Netherlands. It was a big move by a big museum, and it was about time.

• Tropenmuseum becoming Wereldmuseum. As of October 4, 2023, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden and the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam merged under one name: Wereldmuseum. This ethnographic museum, founded in 1864 as the Koloniaal Museum and later known as the Tropenmuseum, decided to change its name to align it more with its new vision. The museum has an impressive collection of ethnographic artefacts, many from the former Dutch colonies, but the focus is now changed to talking more about the history of the colonial past than simply displaying those objects. Wereldmuseum is also trying to return some of these artefacts to their original countries and some were already sent back.

• Hermitage Museum became H’Art Museum after the Russian war on Ukraine broke out. The museum cut ties with its Russian counterpart and rebranded as H’Art Museum in 2023, under the motto: “Great Art Sparks Hearts”.

• Zwarte Piet transformation (this is a country-wide change, not just in Amsterdam). The transformation of Zwarte Piet has been a long-standing challenge to a Dutch tradition. When Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) – the Dutch Santa Claus, comes to town to bring gifts to children, he is always surrounded by its helpers, who, traditionally were called “Zwarte Piets” (Black Piets). Historically, these figures were portrayed by people with faces painted entirely black, along with exaggerated red lipstick. In recent years, this offensive practice has gradually changed. Today, Sinterklaas is assisted by Piets, whose faces are painted lightly, as though dusted with ash from chimneys.

• Some new neighbourhoods appeared where there was nothing (sometimes even the land appeared, as it’s the Dutch habit of reclaiming land from the sea): Houthavens and IJburg.

• North-South Metro Line (Noord/Zuidlijn) was finished after 15 years of work, bringing an easier way to commute to these areas (and skyrocketing the prices of the houses in Noord).

• Amsterdam wants to close down the Red-Light District, and move it to a different place in the city, in an erotic centre. A fight is going on, and the sex workers are protesting against it, supported by many who signed the petition to keep the Red-Light District in the Oudekerk area intact.

• Amsterdam shifted its policies toward sustainability and has set ambitious goals to become carbon-neutral by 2050.

These are only a few changes in the ever transforming life of a city. Amsterdam feels more like “my city” after living together through these changes. Even if in the past years I move out of it, to the northern city of Alkmaar. Amsterdam is still “mine” in a way, as much as everyone’s else who lives within its borders. I have also transformed since I moved here in 2010; some changes for the better, other not so much. It’s the way of life to bring transformation and we should celebrate all of it – all that makes us, us, and the cities we live in – our cities.

Join me in celebrating Amsterdam and its people this year, and stay tuned for the next articles!

A special gift for Amsterdam lovers

For a special gift to someone who loves the city, check out my photo book, a love letter to Amsterdam: “Amsterdam Through the Seasons“. This book is a collection of photos I’ve taken throughout the years. It is a photo book, but it’s not so much about photos as it is about memories. The main goal of this book is to take you for a walk through my Amsterdam, a walk that combines many of my previous wanderings through this city.

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