Amsterdam Demography…

In the 16th and 17th century non-Dutch immigrants to Amsterdam were mostly Huguenots, Flemings, Sephardi Jews and Westphalians*. Hugenots came after 1685′s Edict of Fontainebleau, while the Flemish Protestants came during the Eighty Years’ War. The Westphalians came to Amsterdam mostly for economic reasons.

The first mass immigrants were people from Indonesia, who came to Amsterdam after the independence of the Dutch East Indies in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s guest workers from Turkey, Morocco , Italy and Spain migrated to Amsterdam. After the independence of Suriname in 1975 a large wave of Surinamese settled in Amsterdam, mostly in the Bijlmer area. Other immigrants come from Europe and North America. In the seventies and eighties many ‘old’ Amsterdammers moved to ‘new’ cities like Almere and Purmerend, prompted by third planological bill. Young professionals and artists moved into the 19th century neighbourhoods of the Pijp and the Jordaan abandoned by these Amsterdammers. The non-Western immigrants settled mostly in the social housing projects in Amsterdam-West and the Bijlmer.

With 177 nationalities living within its citylimits [as of January 1, 2007], it is –according to a newspaper article that does not mention its source– ranked number 1 in both the Netherlands, as well as in the world, leaving Antwerp at number 2 [164 nationalities], and New York City at number 3 [150 nationalities]. Non-Western immigrants make up 34% of the population and more than 50% of the children in Amsterdam have a non-western background. In total, around 45% of the population belongs to one of the cultural minority groups.

*My ancesters came to Amsterdam in 1746 from Westphalia