Every design for 'S-Hertogenbosch

Do you call it 's-Hertogenbosch or Den Bosch? Locals use the short name, which is older than the official one, and both point back to the same thing: des Hertogen bosch, the forest of the duke. Henry I, Duke of Brabant, founded the town on forested dunes in the middle of a marsh and planned it from the start as a fortress.

The city lies directly south of the Maas, close to the Waal, and water has always been its ally. In the late fourteenth century the Dommel and the Aa were diverted through a new moat, and during the Eighty Years' War the surrounding marshes made it so hard to take that it earned the nickname Moerasdraak, the marsh dragon. It was also the birthplace of the painter Hieronymus Bosch, and for a time one of the largest towns in what is now the Netherlands. The Citadel van 's-Hertogenbosch and Het Noordbrabants Museum keep that past close at hand.

If you grew up inside these old walls, you know the city by its shortened name and its rivers. Take Den Bosch with you; it has always known how to hold its ground.