Every design for Nijmegen

Nijmegen rises from the south bank of the Waal on a ridge of hills, a few kilometres from the German border, and that high ground is the reason it exists. The Romans chose the spot for a military camp because of the view over the river and the valley beyond, and a town grew up beside it. In 98 it became one of the first places in what is now the Netherlands to receive Roman city rights, and in 2005 it celebrated two thousand years.

There is a particular feeling to belonging to a city this old that still behaves like a young one. Radboud University keeps the streets full of students, and every year the Vierdaagse, the International Four Days Marches, turns the whole city into a finish line. People here speak of Nimwéêge in their own dialect, and the Valkhof Museum, the Barbarossakapel and the Kruittoren remind you that the Romans, the emperors and the Hanseatic traders all passed this way before you.

On the map you can see the bend of the Waal and the newer districts of Lent and Oosterhout on its north bank, where the oldest city in the Netherlands has crossed the river to keep growing.