Delft, Netherlands

The Dutch city and municipality of Delft is located in the South Holland province. It is situated between The Hague to the northwest and Rotterdam to the southeast. Alongside them, it is a component of the Randstad and the Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area.A well-liked travel destination in the Netherlands, Delft is well-known for its blue ceramics, its historical ties to the ruling House of Orange-Nassau, the residence of painter Jan Vermeer, and its status as the home of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). In the past, Delft had a significant impact on the Dutch Golden Age.Delft is regarded as the origin of microbiology in terms of science and technology because of the groundbreaking work of Martinus Beijerinck and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.As the name suggests, the city of Delft was named after the 'Delf' canal, which is derived from the verb delven, which means to delve or dig. Around 1075, a Count built his manor at the high spot where this 'Delf' crossed the creek wall of the silted-up river Gantel. As seen by the size of its central market square, Delft became a significant market town in part because of this.Count Willem II gave Delft its city charter on April 15, 1246, after it had grown from a rural town in the early Middle Ages.

Industry and trade were booming. The port of Delfshaven was constructed in 1389 after the Delfshavensche Schie canal was excavated through to the Maas River, linking Delft with the ocean.When William of Orange (Willem van Oranje), also known as William the Silent (Willem de Zwijger), moved into the old Saint-Agatha monastery (after known as the Prinsenhof) in 1572, the town became associated with the House of Orange. He served as the leader of the Eighty Years' War, a developing national Dutch resistance movement against Spanish domination. At that time, Delft was one of Holland's most important cities and had the city walls needed for a headquarters. In the Battle of Delft in October 1573, Spanish soldiers launched an attack that was repulsed.