Randstad

The Randstad is a conurbation in the west of the Netherlands and covers parts of the provinces of North Holland, South Holland, Flevoland and Utrecht.

Randstad to include the urban areas of and around Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, The Hague, Delft, Rotterdam, Dordrecht, Gouda, Utrecht, Hilversum and Almere with a total population of about eight million people.

The term Randstad (German border town, Saumstadt, edge city) was founded in the 1950s by Albert Plesman, founder and director of the Dutch airline KLM, embossed, who saw the region from the air. The expanding cities approximately form a circle and therefore become one city ring.

The Randstad makes up 20 % of the total area of the Netherlands, but living in this metropolitan area, more than 40% of the Dutch population.

The cities of the Randstad lie between a minimum of 26 km (The Hague - Rotterdam) - apart and a maximum of 77 km (Rotterdam Amsterdam). The regions also form a settlement ring around the so-called Groene Hart ( Green Heart ), a green lung in the center of the Randstad, which is mainly used as a recreational area and nature reserve and assumes a kind of buffer function between the densely populated cities in the metropolitan area.

Together with the Groene Hart and the city of Almere is the Randstad, the area Randstad Holland.

With a gross regional product of 216.3 billion euros is this region, the economic heart of the Netherlands, in Europe after London, Paris, Rhine-Ruhr and Milan in fifth place.

This area was defined by the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment in the context of spatial planning development plan and will promoted.