1940 ↔ today
today map of May 1940
Click any building: its year, address and use, and what the city's map of May 1940 shows on that spot.
Legend
built before 1940, still standing
built 1940–1965, the rebuilding (wederopbouw )
built after 1965
brandgrens, the fire line
lights in the pavement since 2010: red, green on the Noordereiland
1940 map: verwoest gebied , the destroyed area
water today
a named building lost in 1940 (Wikidata): click for what stands there now
What the register shows
Not all of the gap is the fire: after the war the city also cleared buildings that had survived, to make room for the new plan (wederafbraak ). Building counts favour old streets, where every house is its own building; the footprint share is the fairer number.
13:27–13:40
258 ha in ruins, 25,000 homes and 11,000 other buildings lost, 80,000 people homeless (Stadsarchief Rotterdam ).
Sources
Buildings: BAG (Kadaster via PDOK, public domain), downloaded 4 Nov 2026.
Water: BGT (PDOK, CC0). Fire line: lights of type Grondspot Medio type Brandgrens in the Gemeente Rotterdam street-lighting register (public domain), joined to nearest neighbours; gaps are where no lights are registered.
1940 map: Stadsarchief Rotterdam, 4001 I-210-1A (Public Domain Mark), image and georeference from Rotterdam Time Machine on Allmaps , warped for this page (4 control points, affine). Listed monuments: rijksmonumenten of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed via PDOK (CC BY 4.0).
Analysis: Marija Ercegovac · #30DayMapChallenge day 6 · code and notes