Talk:Maastricht
From Academic Kids
Maastricht is not the oldest city of the Netherlands. The discussions on this subject concluded a couple of years ago that Nijmegen is the oldest city in the Netherlands.
- Discussions like this never conclude. It depends a lot on what you mean by "city" and whether the present-day city is truely a continuation of the ancient settlement.
- Discussions indeed came to no conclusion, but it is clear what the arguments are. Nijmegen was the first with Roman city rights; Maastricht the first with Medieval city rights. I incorporated this in the article. Piotr Kapretski 13:59, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Maastricht is the oldest city and not else! Nijmegen maybe got the Roman city rights title first, but Maastricht was founded much earlier and was a city much earlier! By the way; this is an endless discussion in the Netherlands ;-)
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Autonomous area?
I seem to recall there was an area near the present German-Dutch-Belgian junction that was forgotten by the Congress of Vienna and thus was not assigned to any state until the treaties after 1918. Was it Maastrict? If not where was it and what was it called? --StanZegel 07:07, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- No, it was Neutral Moresnet, near the Dutch-Belgian-German three-country border point, and between the Belgian village of Moresnet and the Dutch village of Vaals. Some 5,000 people lived there by 1900 and it was a refuge for free-thinkers. Maastricht has been in the Netherlands ever since 1815 and as an enclave within Belgian area from 1830-1839.--Caesarion 14:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
