Venlo

Town and railway junction in the province of Limburg, the Netherlands, on the River Meuse and on the border with Germany; population (2001 est) 64,800. Venlo is located at the heart of European commercial transportation networks. The trade port sits on an 800 ha/1977 acre site which acts as an important business park housing many companies involved in pharmaceuticals, metallurgy, electronics, foodstuffs, and agricultural produce. The largest single activity involves logistical companies which specialize in packaging, handling, storage, and distribution enterprises. Other industries include engineering and the manufacture of tobacco, paper, and electric lamps.

The Romans arrived in Venlo in 50 AD and the town was first mentioned in Roman Catholic chronicles in 999. The Duke of Gederland granted a city charter to Venlo in 1343 in recognition of its importance as a crossroads of European trade. In the 1400s the city was a frontier fortress of the Hanseatic League and was surrounded by deep moats and high brick walls. It was besieged six times during Holland's Eighty Year War with Spain from 1568 to 1648. Both the Spanish Royal Family and Napoleon unsuccessfully attempted to construct canal systems to link the important inland waterways of the Meuse and the Rhine.

Features include the City Hall (1598) designed by the Dutch architect Willem van Bommel, and one of the few buildings to survive the sieges of the Eighty Year War. The steps and landing were added in 1609, the baroque canopy in 1736. Over the following centuries modernization work has been carried out on the building including work by the Dutch architect J Kayser Jr, who was actively involved in the restoration of several of Venlo's oldest buildings, between 1956 and 1957. He also worked on the Romer House, a building constructed in the early 16th century in late gothic style and the Ald Weishoes (1611), the Old Orphans House. The Van Bommel-Van Dam art museum, is home to a large collection of post-World War II Dutch art and the provincial museum of Limburg province, the Limburgs Museum. Venlo's Municipal archives contain documents relating to the city and dating from 1272. Venlo also stages an annual four-day carnival, the climax of which falls on the Christian holy day of Shrove Tuesday. Participants parade through the town dressed in 1890s attire and festivities end with a mock farmers wedding.