Canal Ring & Old Centre Walk

Welcome to Dam Square, one of the best-known places in the Netherlands. The city takes its name from what was here first: a dam on the Amstel River, built in approximately 1270, which formed the first connection between the settlements on either side. The streets Rokin and Damrak still follow the river's original course. On the west side is the Royal Palace, which served as the city hall from 1655 until it became a royal residence in 1808.

Beside it stands the 15th-century Gothic Nieuwe Kerk, the New Church. Facing them on the other side of the square is the National Monument, a white stone pillar designed by J.J.P. Oud and erected in 1956 in memory of the victims of the Second World War. The square is roughly rectangular, about 660 feet from west to east.

This is the Anne Frank House, a museum dedicated to the Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. During the Second World War, when the Netherlands was occupied by Germany, Anne hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms in the rear of this 17th-century canal house, later known as the Secret Annex. Her father, Otto Frank, had moved his company's offices here in 1940. The group stayed hidden for two years and one month until they were raided and arrested, and deported to the camps.

Only Otto survived. Anne's diary was published in 1947. Ten years later, a foundation was set up to save the building from developers, and the museum opened in 1960. In 2017 it had 1.27 million visitors.