Arnhem

Arnhem grew beside the Sint-Jansbeek, where roads from Nijmegen divided towards Utrecht and Zutphen. Its streams supplied the settlement with water, while the Rhine originally flowed farther away. In 1233 Count Otto II of Guelders granted it town rights and fortified it. Arnhem joined the Hanseatic League in 1443, taking its place among the trading towns of northern Europe.

Charles the Bold of Burgundy captured Arnhem in 1473. Charles of Egmond recovered it for Guelders in 1514, but the city passed to Emperor Charles V in 1543. A change in the course of the Rhine around 1530 brought the river to the city itself. During the Dutch Revolt Arnhem joined the Union of Utrecht in 1579; Dutch and English troops took it from the Spanish in 1585. French forces occupied the town from 1672 to 1674, and its old fortifications were largely dismantled in the early nineteenth century.