Interesting facts about Amsterdam – find out fascinating facts about one of the oldest cities in Europe. Amsterdam is the biggest city and port in the Netherlands. The parliament of the Netherlands is located in Hague but not Amsterdam.

One of the Interesting facts about Amsterdam is that it is located 4 meters lower then the sea level.

The first mentioning about Amsterdam relates to 1275, when Amstel River was stopped with dam in order to protect the city from the floods.

In spite of legal sale of some light drugs Amsterdam is one of most safe cities in Europe.

Another interesting fact about Amsterdam is that the main means of transportation here are bicycles and they count about 500 000 bikes in the city. With citizens in the suburbs this amount would be doubled.

Bikers are considered to be participants of the traffic with same rights as car drivers. There are numerous bike roads with lights in Amsterdam.

The Red Lights Street in Amsterdam officially is called de Vallen and basically the most famous place. Sex museum and marihuana museum are located in the same district.

One more interesting fact about Amsterdam is that you can buy up to 5 grams of marihuana in coffee shops.

Smoking is officially forbidden in public areas but this doesn’t impact smoking of hashish and marihuana.

2001 was marked as the year when one sex marriages were allowed in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam city has its own boat just for cats, which is a shelter for stray cat. They started the Catboat’ 1960s and today this is a famous shelter for cats.

Approximately 1 million of bicycles is counted in Amsterdam’s, but a huge number of bicycles ends in the canals. About 25,000 bikes are fished from the canals every year.

There is Anne Frank’s Museum in Amsterdam and her diary is available in 70 different languages.