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Concept
Kerkrade
Summary
Kerkrade (Ripuarian: Kirchroa; Kirkraoj; Kerkrade or Kirchrath) is a town and a municipality in the southeast of Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands. It forms part of the Parkstad Limburg agglomeration.
Kerkrade is the western half of a divided city; it was part of the German town of Herzogenrath until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 drew the current Dutch-German border and separated the towns. This means that the eastern end of the city marks the international border.
The two towns, including outlying suburban settlements, have a population approaching 100,000, of which nearly 47,000 are in Kerkrade.
The history of Kerkrade is closely linked with that of the adjacent town of Herzogenrath, just across the German border. Herzogenrath began as a settlement, called Rode, near the river Worm (or Wurm in German) in the 11th century. In 1104 Augustinian monks founded an abbey, called Kloosterrade, to the west of this settlement.
It was called 's-Hertogenrode or 's-Hertogenrade (Dutch: the Duke's Rode) after the duchy of Brabant took control over the region; in French it was called Rolduc (Rode-le-duc). As is the case for many parts of the Southern Netherlands, the place changed hands several times in the last few centuries. It was under Spanish control from 1661, Austrian between 1713 and 1785 and French between 1795 and 1813. In 1815, when the kingdom of the Netherlands was formed (see Vienna Congress), the border was drawn through Herzogenrath, the western part being Kerkrade.
In the 18th century the monks of Rolduc began small-scale coal mines. More modern exploitation by others started in 1860, causing Kerkrade to grow significantly, especially as a consequence of the permanent settlement of mainly Southern-European miners in this Northern-European place. When the Willem Sophia mine was opened around 1900, the town grew even more rapidly, absorbing old villages like Chèvremont. In the decades following 1960, all the mines in Limburg were closed.
Official source
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