Gracht (; plural: grachten) is a Dutch word for a canal within a city. Grachten often have a round shape, and form a circle around the city cores in the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern Germany. Outside the Netherlands, the word grachten mostly refers to the city canals of Amsterdam (for which it is well known) and also Utrecht, Leiden and The Hague. The Koninginnegracht in The Hague was conceived by King Willem I for the promotion of tourism in the early 19th century. Since 2009 the Willemsvaart once more offers tours over this gracht, to Scheveningen, known as "StrandRelax" or "BeachRelax", a unique stretch of sand between The Hague and the sea.
Translation
The word cannot be easily translated; for this reason, it is necessary to distinguish between four related terms:
A (city-canal) is a waterway in the city with one-way streets on both sides of the water. The streets are lined with houses, often in a closed front. In rare cases, there is only one street, and on the other side of the waterway, the houses border on the water. A (literally meaning ) is a man-made watercourse, usually in the countryside, with or without streets along its banks. A is a canal used for transport, rather than for other purposes such as drainage. Like most , they are usually in the countryside. A is by origin a water-filled moat which surrounds a city for defense purposes. When the city expands, the is incorporated in the city's structure and can no longer be distinguished from a , but the name is usually maintained. As such, often encircle (older) parts of the city. However, in other cases regular were dug in circles as well, like the famous (literal translation: belt) of Amsterdam.
Although the word means or in the general sense, there is no exact equivalent for the term in English.
Etymology
The word gracht stems from the older word graft, which is derived from graven, to dig (cf. English "grave"). The Dutch language has had a sound shift in which the combination -ft became -cht. Other examples are lucht (German: Luft, air) and zacht (English: soft). In some regional languages such as Frisian and Gronings, the word graft is still used.
In Dutch, the word gracht is used only when canals are located inside the city, while canals outside a city are called kanaal. However, Venice is an exception. In Dutch, one does not say "de grachten van Venetië" (the city-canals of Venice), but "de kanalen van Venetië" (the canals of Venice).
Toponyms for grachten are usually made by the suffixes -gracht, -singel (which refers to the old circle-shaped canals), -wal (referring to the bank of the gracht), -vest (referring to a fortification), and -kade (Southern Dutch: -kaai; quay). The suffix -diep is used in Groningen where it is a local word for a large canal.
When a gracht is a remake of an old river, the river's name is used.
History
Grachten were the life-lines of Dutch and Flemish cities. They were used for many purposes: for transportation, for draining, as water supply and as sewers, all at the same time. In heavily populated cities, these combined functions repeatedly proved to be detrimental to the public health.
Most Hanseatic cities have grachten to transport, to load and to land goods in and from ships. In the Netherlands, the northeastern cities of Deventer, Hindeloopen, Kampen, Leeuwarden, Meppel, Sneek, Zutphen and Zwolle are renowned for their historical grachten. Other cities in the Netherlands, in the western part of the country, are also touristic attractions because of their grachten, especially Alkmaar, Amersfoort, Gouda, Hoorn, Leiden, Utrecht and Weesp.
Sometimes grachten were made from older rivers, like in Groningen. There the older river called Drentse Aa was used as a natural part of the grachten. In Delft, the main gracht – Oude Delft – started as a drainage canal for reclaiming land in marshy surroundings: in a period roughly around the year 1100, a canal was dug, making use of a natural creek in the marshy country. This canal was called Delf, later on Delft, from the word delven that is akin to the verb to "delve" in English. This canal was used to drain the land at both sides; later on it also served as a waterway for transport.
Later, a second canal, called the Nieuwe Delft (New Delft) was dug through part of the settlement that had grown around the first. The original canal became known as the Oude Delft (Old Delft), a name it still bears today.