Talk:Utrecht

Buildings on the Uithof
I've made an (incomplete) list of buildings on the Uithof, i.e. the scientist they are named after. However, I don't know much about all of them, nor do I know if there are wiki articles on these people. Please help to fix the links and add the full names.

Thanks, Eef (A) 12:55, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I've extended the list a bit and moved it to the article on De Uithof, for more information about the names of the buildings see [the webpage of Utrecht University on this subject] (in Dutch). sietse 21:15, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

City on the Rhine
Utrecht has been on the Rhine for a long time. Does it really belong in that category? ---moyogo

I guess you mean off the Rhine, which is kind of correct as the main bedding of the Rhine has shifted to the south. The original Roman fortress was on the main Rhine flow, the 'Oude Gracht' once was the Rhine. Small rivers, split from the Rhine still flow into Utrecht are still called kromme rijn (bent rhine) and Leidse Rijn (rhine). The Rhine has never played such an explicit name-role as in Germany, as it splits into multiple rivers about 2 kilometers past the German Dutch border. The main flow is called Waal (at Nijmegen), renamed Lek, Nieuwe Maas and Nieuwe Waterweg (near Rotterdam). The Rhine from then on is called Nederrijn, Nether Rhine and is much smaller. So this seems a bit arbitrary, to place any Dutch cities (as goes for other dutch cities except Arnhem).

I would suggest to Remove Utrecht from this category if anyone feels the category becomes overcrowded.---Arnoutf

Transport
I removed a reference to traffic jams due to lagging road construction, as this is in my opinion a point of view. Traffic congestion in the Netherlands may as well be the results of decades of lagging public transport construction, in conjection with budget cuts on public transport; and neglect of possibillities of bikes in local transport (as this is also a pov, I would suggest not to refer to either). Arnoutf 20:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Figures on History section
We may want to add some other figures to the history section. Especially the 'liberation' picture for Utrecht is referred to by only 1 sentence, and as no fighting occurred and liberation was only after surrender. Perhaps another picture from Utrechts history may be better suited?? Arnoutf 11:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with the need to add more people to the history section, it's a bit painful to see Henk Westbroek on the list.

Werven
Shouldn't there be something about why the canal structure is so unique. Wouldn't it be better if somebody explained that the Utrecht Canals have werven and what that is. I do not know what the English term is for werven and werfkelders, nor do I know how to explain it in one sentence, but saying it is unique without explaining why seems silly.

Oudgracht a canal?
I am not sure whether Canal is the best translation of the use of Gracht in the Utrecht situation. OudGracht used to be natural bedding of the Rhine, it was canalised, but IMHO is not a true canal (kanaal) - ( except of course the northern section from Langeie straat to Weertsluis). This situation is completely different from the Amsterdam situation where circular canals (grachten) were dug and no natural flows existed beforehand. That the word is the same in Dutch does not mean it needs be the same in English (after all (slot)gracht is translated moat not canal). Anyone another option? Arnoutf 15:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Evil and a Heathen
Utrecht is mentioned in the song Evil and a Heathen by Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand from their 2005 album You Could Have It So Much Better. Is this worth a mention in the article? --Guus Hoekman 21:54, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * May be interesting is it has a large importance in the song, if it is just mentioned in a line somewhere through, I think it is not truly relevant. Will listen to the song one of these days. Arnoutf 07:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's really just in one line and has little importance. The lyrics go: "trecht led me to the Sacre Coeur". I checked the article on Sacre Coeur and it's mentioned there. Guus Hoekman 02:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I added it in a subsection trivia under culture. I think anyay that the culture section maybe expanded (more on music, and theaters and galleria's; now is very much museum focussed).Arnoutf 10:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Retrieval date
I have noticed a lot of red links in the references section. The only right way to add a retrieval date is like this: accessdate=2008-01-06. Thank you. Baldrick90 (talk) 21:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I noticed them myself, but after formatting the whole bunch did not have the stamina to complete that detail. Arnoutf (talk) 16:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Dutch Water Line
The article states several times that Utrecht was part of the Dutch Water Line of the 17th century. The Dutch article about the Dutch Water Line states that Utrecht was not a part of it. Also, I have read quite a few about the history of Utrecht, but I have never read that it was part of the Dutch water line. A quick search on google gives this map which clearly shows that Utrecht was not a part of the Dutch water line. So I am going to remove the lines. --Merijn2 (talk) 00:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC) I have also removed the French Age section because it only dealt with th creation of the Zocher park, which did not occur in the French age and which is dealt with later in the text anyway —Preceding unsigned comment added by Merijn2 (talk • contribs) 00:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you have a look at the English article at Dutch Water Line? It shows a clear map of the New Dutch Water Line, of which Utrecht was the central point. Classical geographer (talk) 10:29, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was too quick. Your edit did just that - remove the reference to the Old Line and focus on the New Line. Good work. Classical geographer (talk) 10:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * In the old line Utrecht was an integrated part as a fortified town (much like Naarden). In the New Line, a new set of fortress (a.o. Rhijnauwen) was constructed east of Utrecht. Utrecht was no longer part of the actual defense system, and the walls could be demolished. Arnoutf (talk) 17:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you reference that? Cause I looked it up in the only book I have on the history of Utrecht, and that states " the (old) Dutch water line ran west of Utrecht". The book is called "historische Atlas van de stad Utrecht" and is not really scientific so if you have a more academic source then I'll undo my edit. If I would have more time, which I don't, I would go to the library and search for more academic sources to see what they say about it. --Merijn2 (talk) 00:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've done some more research on google on "oude hollandse waterlinie" and every page that has a map of the old Dutch waterline has a map similar to the one I linked to above. In every description of it it is mentioned that it ran via Woerden and Utrecht is not mentioned. It seems that it is the whole of the internet versus Arnoutf on this issue so please tell me, what is your source?  You've done a great job with this article and you deserve a lot of praise for it but you have to give some evidence on this matter because I just don't believe you on your word alone.--Merijn2 (talk) 00:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok I maybe wrong, will try to find out how it works. What I know for sure is that during the time of the Old Water Line, Utrecht was a fortified city; whether that fortified city was actually part of the defenses of the Waterline, or that it was fortified because of the city lying east of the lines (and hence being unprotected by it) seems to be the issue. I have to admit, I thought it was part, but seeing your evidence I think I was probably wrong. Thanks for correcting me there. Arnoutf (talk) 08:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I checked. You are right. The Old Water Line existed between 1672 and 1815 and ran west of Utrecht; this left Utrecht depending on its own defenses, (ie a fortified city-but not part of the Waterline). The New Waterlinie is slightly east of Utrecht. Utrecht was never a fortified city in either. The 1815 move to the west allowed Utrecht to demolish its city defenses in 1827. Note that the Utrecht Lunetten, Fort de Klop and Fort de Gagel were outside of Utrecht when they were constructed +\- 150 years ago.
 * Thanks for correcting this, this is one of the things that makes Wiki a good thing; errors of editors being caught and corrected by others. Arnoutf (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Intro
''"Utrecht (pronunciation (help·info)) city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht"
 * Can a municipality, which contains more places than one city, be the most populous city?
 * Can a city, which is not the complete municipality, be the capital of a province? --VKing (talk) 02:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Proposed alternative: "Utrecht (pronunciation (help·info)) is a city and a municipality in the Dutch province of the same name. The municipality is the capital and most populous place of this Utrecht province."--VKing (talk) 02:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Does not solve the problem, does it? The municipality would still be listed as the most populous place. I believe the city, not the municipality is the capital of a province, so it'd be enough to write "Utrecht (pronunciation (help·info)) is a city and a municipality in the Dutch province of the same name. The city of Utrecht is both the capital and the most populous place of this province." Classical geographer (talk) 10:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Moving it?
Shouldn't be better to move the article to Utrecht and the current disambiguation page to Utrecht (disambiguation)? People who looks for Utrecht is usually looking for the city rather the province, the diocese or the local football club, so there is actually no reason to disambiguate here. --Angelo (talk) 17:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The province is also called Utrecht, so I would not rename; but making a redirect from Utrecht here, with a disambig on top of this page to the moved Utrecht disambig would be ok with me. Arnoutf (talk) 18:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I can tell you about Italy, where almost all the provinces are named after the corresponding capital cities (see Rome and Province of Rome for an example), however it is natural that "Rome" covers the city, and "Province of Rome" covers the related province, with no need for disambiguation. What I propose is to leave Utrecht (province) as it is, moving instead Utrecht to Utrecht (disambiguation) and Utrecht (city) to Utrecht. --Angelo (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a bit more complex in the Netherlands. Utrecht is the only province named after its capital. Arnoutf (talk) 16:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

sport
Should there be a heading on sport? Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 13:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Why? Arnoutf (talk) 16:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Rabobrug
I made a new article Rabobrug, basing it on nl:Rabobrug. --Mathew5000 (talk) 06:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Utrecht which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 13:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Metro figure
Although the Netherlands does not really keep track of 'metro areas', I think the figure listed here is the urban population of Utrecht. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.83.239.128 (talk) 18:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

[Untitled]
I'm sorry, but Utrecht is NOT a Dutch euphemism for a homosexual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.121.239.82 (talk) 10:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobody says so. It is about the term Utrechtenaar that at one time had to connotation. Arnoutf (talk) 15:01, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Good climate data for Utrecht?
I just changed the climate data table to use the data of the Hong Kong Observatory instead of Meteo Consult. The data of Meteo Consult was better because it is more recent, but the reference given for the data led to the front page of the Dutch website of Meteo Consult. I'm Dutch myself, but I couldn't find the data used for the climate table anywhere on their website. If a direct link to their climate data is in fact available, can the person who knows this link undo my edit and give a proper reference to the climate data of Meteo Consult? I also checked if the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute has data here, but they don't.

The older data of HKO gives colder temperatures (global warming I guess) and lot less sunshine, Utrecht isn't a sunny place but I can hardly imagine it's as gloomy as HKO's data suggests. I calculated the monthly sunshine hours by multiplying the daily sunshine hours given by HKO with 28,25 as is recommended by Template:Weather_box, maybe that's where it went wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexanderVanLoon (talk • contribs) 20:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I consider this to be fixed know. I added the data provided by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute for the weather station at De Bilt, which lies very close to Utrecht.--AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 08:12, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Lewys

 * "Lewys is the Prince and Bishop. He is great. We love him."

This is written at the end of the Prince-Bishops section. It is invisible on the edit page, and I can't see how to remove it. Heavenlyblue (talk) 22:46, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * There's more. (At least at the end of the lead, and at the end of section City of Utrecht.) It's in the article page, but not in the edit page. Please help. An IP that's blocked now added it, and ClueBot appeared to have tried to revert it . But it's still there, in the article space. Mark in wiki (talk) 06:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not see any in the article now. Have all of them been removed successfully? CRwikiCA  talk 14:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you. It has been solved now, thanks to help from the village pump . Mark in wiki (talk) 16:13, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Timeline of Utrecht
What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content! Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 09:13, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Recent events
I have removed the one-sentence subsection about the recent shooting in Utrecht because I feel it is out of place in a three-paragraph description of Utrecht's modern history, which spans more than two centuries. Surely the considerations that have lead to its inclusion would merit the inclusion of many other recent events that have happened in the city, which in my opinion would be equally out of place in this article. I am perfectly happy with the existence of an article about the shooting in Wikipedia, I just feel including it in the article about the city would give this undue weight. Mark in wiki (talk) 13:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree with removal. Sad and shocking as the shooting maybe, it is only a very minor incident in the almost 2000 years the city exists. Arnoutf (talk) 16:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Conversion of part of moat into motorway and back into waterway
I have put a short mention of this in the Cityscape section. There is a lot more info about this in these links: ... but I think these sources may not be considered reliable in WP, even though these seem to me to be well produced and informative. Any opinions on this?
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsQQ8Ujbua4 "Removing a motorway to bring back the original waterway"
 * https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-removed-to-bring-back-original-water/
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePpwYCs_JM "Utrecht’s canal ring is complete"
 * https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2020/09/16/utrecht-corrects-a-historic-urban-design-mistake/

FrankSier (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Updated Climate Data: 1991-2020
Official climate averages for the period 1991-2020 are now available at KNMI - Klimaattabellen Per Station. Under "Klimaattabel, per station" ---> "De Bilt". Should the climate table be updated? Duprie37 (talk) 08:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Split
Can the municipality be split off into a separate page? It is quite confusing as it is currently, and I see no reason why these pages need to be combined. – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 09:11, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Population Data
Can this be checked? There are marginally more Indonesians than Surinamers, but Surinamers make up 3% and Indonesians 2.3%. Totals add up to 101.6.