Rotterdam trivia; 20 interesting facts about the city

Rotterdam is a city known for many things. We made a selection of 20 cool and interesting trivia facts about Rotterdam.

Did you know…

1. Rotterdam was granted city rights twice. First in 1299, and later again in 1340. But 1340 is generally considered as the official year.
2. Rotterdam became 666 years old at midnight in the night of 06-06-(20)06.
3. Rotterdam is named after the river Rotte, while the big river dividing the city is actually the Nieuwe Maas.
4. Rotterdam’s motto is ‘Sterker door strijd’, which translates to ‘stronger through struggle’.
5. Rotterdam has around 70 football clubs of which three are professional.
6. Rotterdam is home to Europe’s first skyscraper, ‘Het Witte Huis‘ (The White House). It was built in 1898 and has 10 floors.
7. Rotterdam’s tallest building, the Zalmhaven Toren, is 215 meters high and has 59 floors.
8. Rotterdam’s submunicipality Delfshaven used to be a colony of the city of Delft.
9. Rotterdam used to have the first chinatown of Europe in the 20’s of the 20th century.
10. Rotterdam is the birthplace of Gabber, a hardcore version of house music.
11. Rotterdam is the birthplace of Desiderius Erasmus and has a bridge, a university and a large academic hospital named after him.
12. Rotterdam’s often used nickname ‘010’ (nultien), comes from the telephone area code of Rotterdam.
13. Rotterdam has several other nicknames; Rotown, Roffa, Rotjeknor, de Maasstad, de Werkstad, Koningin van de Maas, Manhattan aan de Maas.
14. Rotterdam is famous for the large collection of outdoor art. The most famous piece is Santa Claus, better known as Gnome Buttplug.
15. Rotterdam’s building Schielandhuis used to have Napoleon Bonaparte as a guest.
16. Rotterdam’s city center was heavily bombed by a Nazi air raid in 1940. A total of 24,000 houses, 32 churches and 2 synagogues were destroyed. Close to 900 people were killed and about 80,000 people became homeless.
17. Rotterdam has about 400 LED lights with an image of a burning city on the pavement. The lights mark the 12 km ‘brandgrens’, the border of the area that was bombed by the Nazi’s.
18. Rotterdam is home to well over 900 restaurants.
19. Rotterdam contributed the ‘Kapsalon‘ to the culinary world. A dish containing fries, döner kebab, cheese, lettuce, garlic sauce and hot sauce.
20. Rotterdam’s refineries have direct pipelines to the airports of Amsterdam, Brussels and Frankfurt for fueling the planes.