Non-Dutch immigrants to Amsterdam in the 16th and 17th centuries were mostly Flemish Protestants, Huguenots, Westphalians, and Sephardi Jews. The Huguenots came in 1685 following the Edict of Fontainebleau, while the Flemings arrived in the midst of the 80 Years’ War.
On the other hand, the Westphalians emigrated to Amsterdam largely for economic reasons from the 18th to 19th centuries. Before the World War II, about 10% of the population of Amsterdam was Jewish.
Indonesians emigrated to the city the 20th century when the Dutch East Indies obtained its independence in the 1940s. In the 1960s workers from Italy, Morocco, Spain, and Turkey came to Amsterdam. Following the independence of Suriname in the 1970s, a wave of Surinamese lived in the city.
Other immigrants, including illegal immigrants and asylum seekers came from America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. In the 1970s and 1980s, many ‘old’ people of Amsterdam moved to ‘new’ cities such as Purmerend and Almere, driven by the Dutch government’s third planological bill. It promoted suburbanization and drove new developments in ‘groeikernen” (meaning, ‘cores of growth’).
Artists and young professionals began moving into the neighborhoods of the Jordaan and de Pijp and abandoned by the ‘old’ Amsterdammers. Most non-Western immigrants made a settlement in the social housing projects in Bijlmer and Amsterdam-West. Today, they make up about 33% of the population of the city.
The largest religious group in the city is composed of Christians, divided between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Islam is the second largest religion; most followers are Sunni.
