Coevorden

Coevorden is a municipality and a city in the northeastern Netherlands. During the municipal reorganisation in the province in 1998, Coevorden merged with Dalen, Sleen, Oosterhesselen and Zweeloo.EtymologyThe name Coevorden means "cow ford" or "cow crossing", similar to Bosporus or Oxford.HistoryCoevorden received city rights in 1408.The city was captured from the Spanish in 1592 by a Dutch and English force under the command of Maurice, Prince of Orange. The following year it was besieged by a Spanish force but the city held out until its relief in May 1594. Coevorden was then reconstructed in the early seventeenth century to an ideal city design, similar to Palmanova. The streets were laid out in a radial pattern within polygonal fortifications and extensive outer earthworks.The city of Coevorden may have indirectly given its name to the city of Vancouver, which is named after the 18th-century British explorer George Vancouver. The explorer's ancestors (and family name) may have originally come to England "from Coevorden" (van Coevorden > Vancoevorden > Vancouver). There is also a family of nobility with the surname van Coeverden, sometimes spelled with a K (as with Canadian kayaker Adam van Koeverden).