Eastern Docklands

The Eastern Docklands (Dutch: Oostelijk Havengebied) is a neighborhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands, located between the IJ and the Nieuwe Vaart in the borough of Amsterdam-Oost. The harbor area was constructed in the late nineteenth century to allow for increasing trade with the Dutch East Indies; a new location was necessitated by the construction of the Amsterdam Centraal railway station, which replaced the old quays. East of the new station was a marshy area called De Rietlanden, with the Zeeburgerdijk (then called Sint Antoniesdijk), running via the Zeeburch, a fort, to the Zuiderzee. The neighborhood consists of the districts: KNSM Island, Java-eiland, Oostelijke Handelskade, Cruquiuseiland, Borneo-eiland and Sporenburg. The area, about 2/3 water and 1/3 land, consists of an extension of the Oostelijke Handelskade, east of the center of town, and four artificial "islands" (peninsulas), all of which were former industrial and harbor locations of the port of Amsterdam. In the early 2000s, after a large-scale reorganization, the city's biggest post-World War II building project, the Eastern Docklands was de-industrialized and became home to some 17,000 people living in some the highest population densities in the Netherlands.