Rotterdam

Rotterdam grew around a dam on the Rotte in Holland's delta. Count William IV granted it town rights in 1340, and waterways linked its port to inland towns and the sea. During the Dutch Revolt Spanish troops occupied and damaged the town in 1572; after their departure its access to the sea helped it gain trade.

Rotterdam expanded as a port in the Dutch Republic. It became home to chambers of both the Dutch East India Company and West India Company; its merchants and ships took part in overseas commerce, including the Atlantic slave trade. The city was also the birthplace of the humanist Erasmus. Its later rise to a vastly larger port depended on developments beyond the early nineteenth century.