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Limburg is the southernmost of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands. The province is bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north and by North Brabant to its west. Its long eastern boundary forms the international border with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. To the west is the international border with the similarly named Belgian province of Limburg, part of which is delineated by the river Meuse. The Vaalserberg is on the extreme south-eastern point, marking the tripoint of the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Limburg's major cities are the provincial capital Maastricht (pop. 121,565), as well as Venlo (pop. 101,603) in the Northeast, and Sittard-Geleen (pop. 92,661) and Heerlen (pop. 86,832) in the south. More than half of the population, approximately 650,000 people, live in the south of Limburg, which corresponds to roughly one-third of the province's area proper. In South Limburg, most people live in the urban agglomerations of Maastricht, Parkstad and Sittard-Geleen.
[edit] History
The current province Limburg of the Netherlands only came into existence in 1839, after the finalization of the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands which had begun in 1830. The two Limburgs had been brought together under French revolutionary administration some decades earlier, but they and the surrounding region shared much of their history. For long periods of history however, the region was not united under the same rule. For centuries, the strategic location of the current province, stretching along the Maas river route, made it a much-coveted region among Europe's major powers. Romans, Carolingians, Habsburg Spaniards, Prussians, Habsburg Austrians and France have all ruled parts of Limburg. The first inhabitants of whom traces have been found were Neanderthals who camped in South Limburg. In Neolithic times, flint was mined in underground mines. [edit] Roman eraIn 53 BC, Julius Caesar conquered the area, and wrote that he had extinguished the name of the Eburones, the inhabitants of most of the area of current Limburg, as a punishment for their revolt under Ambiorix. The north-south route along the Maas was crossed by the Via Belgica, a road crossing South Limburg and connecting the two local capitals of Tongeren and Cologne. Mosa Trajectum (Maastricht) and Coriovallum (Heerlen) were founded by the Romans upon this route. The area became strongly Romanized. Bishop Servatius introduced Christianity in Roman Maastricht, where he died in 384. Maastricht appears to have taken over from Tongeren for some time as regional capital for the Romanized and Christian population, before the bishopric was re-established in Liège, south of Maastricht. [edit] Medieval eraAs Roman authority in the area weakened, Franks took over from the Romans, but the area came to flourish under their rule, with Cologne continuing to be the most important local capital. The Maas valley, especially the middle and southern part of the current province, formed an important part of the heartland of Merovingian Austrasia. With the rise of the Carolingian dynasty, who were themselves from this region, the Maas valley became more culturally and politically one of the most important regions in Europe. In 714 Susteren Abbey was founded, as far as is known the first proprietary abbey in the current Netherlands. The main benefactor was Plectrude, the consort of Pepin of Herstal. Charles Martel was born in nearby Herstal. Charlemagne made Aachen, today a German city which has suburban sprawl stretching into South Limburg, the capital of the Frankish empire. After the death of Charlemagne, the Frankish dominions were again split between kings. While the Austrasian lands remained a separate "Middle Kingdom", sometimes now referred to as Lotharingia, in the treaties of Verdun (843), and Prüm (855), in the 870 Treaty of Meerssen, signed in South Limburg itself, Lotharingia was divided. The river Meuse became the border between the Western- and Eastern Frankish kingdoms, placing most of the current Dutch province of Limburg on the western boundary of the Eastern Frankish kingdom, with Belgian Limburg in the Western Kingdom. In the Treaty of Ribemont of 888, the Eastern Kingdom was granted control of the whole of Lotharingia, including all of the modern Netherlands and Luxembourg, and most of modern Belgium. The region of Thorn, Netherlands was drained and about 975 a swamp nearby the Roman road between Maastricht and Nijmegen. Bishop Ansfried of Utrecht founded a Benedictine nunnery. This monastery developed since the 12th century into a secular stift or convent. The principal of the stift was the abbess. She was assisted by a chapter of at most twenty ladies of the highest nobility. During the period of West Frankish control under the Treaty of Meerssen, effective Frankish power in the area of the current Netherlands more or less collapsed. For two or more years a large Viking army, operating from a place on or near the Meuse called Ascloa (or Hasloa or Haslon), wrought havoc in the neighbourhood. The damage was such that the emperor, Charles the Fat was forced to assemble a large multinational army, that in 882 unsuccessfully besieged this island. In the 10th century, the Eastern kingdom consolidated its control of Lotharingia and became the Holy Roman Empire. In the first decades of this empire the founding imperial family has close ties to areas in current northern Limburg. The emperor Otto III for instance was born in 980 in Kessel, practically on the current border between Limburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, just east from Gennep. In 1080 in Genneperhuis, just north of Gennep, Norbert of Gennep was born as a son of the count of Gennep. He was the founder of the order of the Premonstratensians. South Limburg in the early Middle Ages was mainly made up of the lordships of Valkenburg, Dalhem, and Herzogenrath. All of these lands were however united with the Duchy of Limburg, under the rule of the Duchy of Brabant, when they were known collectively as the Lands of Overmaas. The Duchy of Limburg and its dependencies first came under Brabantian control in 1288, as a result of the Battle of Worringen, then in the 15th century under the Duchy of Burgundy. By 1473, the Lands of Overmaas and the Duchy of Limburg formed one unified delegation to the States General of the Burgundian Netherlands. Both the terms Overmaas and Limburg came to be used loosely to refer to this sparsely populated province of the so-called Seventeen Provinces. Maastricht was never part of this polity: as a condominium, sovereignty over this city was held jointly by the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and the Duchy of Brabant. Also, the central and northern part of present-day Limburg belonged to different political entities, notably the Duchy of Jülich and the Duchy of Guelders. By the late Middle Ages, most of the present day territory of Limburg had been partitioned to the Duchy of Brabant, the Duchy of Gelderland, the Duchy of Jülich, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège or the Electorate of Cologne. These dukes, prince-bihops and prince-electors were nominal subordinates of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but in practice acted as independent sovereigns who were often at war with each other. These conflicts were often fought in and over Limburg, contributing to its fragmentation and a loss of economic importance.
[edit] Early modern eraIn the early modern era, Limburg was largely divided between Spain (and its successor, Austria), Prussia, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and many independent small fiefs. In 1673, Louis XIV personally commanded the siege of Maastricht by French troops. During the siege, one of his brigadiers, Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, perished. He subsequently became known as a major character in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père (1802–1870). [edit] 19th centuryThe modern boundaries of Dutch Limburg, along with its neighbour, Belgian Limburg, were basically set during the period after the French revolution, which erased much of the "ancien regime" of Europe, with all its old boundaries and titles. These two provinces were part of a new French département, named (like many départements) after the river running through it, "Meuse-Inférieure", meaning simply "lower Maas". Following the Napoleonic Era, the great powers (the United Kingdom, Prussia, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire and France) left the region to the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. A new province was formed which was to receive the name "Maastricht" after its capital. The first king, William I, who did not want the medieval name to be lost, insisted that it be changed to "Province of Limburg". As such, the name of the new province was derived from the old Duchy of Limburg that had existed until 1795 on the east bank of the Meuse river. When the Catholic and French-speaking Belgians split away from the mainly Calvinist northern Netherlands in the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the Province of Limburg was at first almost entirely under Belgian rule. However, by the 1839 Treaty of London, the province was divided in two, with the eastern part going to the Netherlands and the western part to Belgium, a division that remains today. With the Treaty of London, what is now the Belgian Province of Luxembourg was handed over to Belgium and removed from the German Confederation. To appease Prussia, which had also lost access to the Meuse after the Congress of Vienna, the Dutch province of Limburg (but not the cities of Maastricht and Venlo because without them Limburg's population equalled that of the Province of Luxembourg, 150,000 [1]), was joined to the German Confederation between 5 September 1839 and 23 August 1866 as Duchy of Limburg. On 11 May 1867, the Duchy, which from 1839 on had been de jure a separate polity in personal union with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was reincorporated into the latter with the 1867 Treaty of London, though the term "Duchy of Limburg" remained in some official use until February 1907. Another idiosyncrasy survives today: the head of the province, referred to as the "King's Commissioner" in other provinces, is addressed as "Governor" in Limburg. [edit] 20th centuryThe Second World War cost the lives of many civilians in Limburg, and a large number of towns and villages were destroyed by bombings and artillery battles. Various cemeteries, too, bear witness to this dark chapter in Limburg's history. Almost 8,500 American soldiers, who perished during the liberation of the Netherlands, lie buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten. Other big war cemeteries are to be found at Overloon (British soldiers) and the Ysselsteyn German war cemetery was constructed in the Municipality of Venray for the 31,000 German soldiers who lost their lives. According to the research of Herman van Rens, the residents of Limburg were especially active in hiding local and refugee Jews during the Holocaust, to the extent that the Jewish population even increased during the war. Jews in hiding were three times as likely to survive in Limburg as in Amsterdam. In December 1991, the European Community (now European Union) held a summit in Maastricht. At that summit, the "Treaty on European Union" or so-called Maastricht Treaty was signed by the European Community member states. With that treaty, the European Union came into existence. [edit] AnthemLimburg mijn Vaderland (Limburg my Fatherland) is the official anthem of both Belgian and Dutch Limburg. [edit] Regional Archives[edit] Research Tips[edit] See also
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