Enschede

Enschede is a Dutch city with more than 142.000 inhabitants, and even more than 150.000 as a municipality. It is situated in the very eastern part of The Netherlands in the Dutch province of Overijssel, very close to the border of Germany. The region Enschede is in is called 'Twente'. Enschede is also by far the largest city of the Dutch province of Overijssel, having much more inhabitants than province-capital Zwolle (105.000) being second largest city of the province of Overijssel. Enschede used to be a city with many textile-factories, but these days are over. Many textile-factories, if not all, have closed. But ever since then Enschede has changed dramatically. Enschede already has a university and many ICT-companies settled in the municipality. It also has a very nice city-centre that recently has been restyled and completed with a Dutch luxurious De Bijenkorf department store.

The city houses the largest International Institute of the country, The International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC, www.itc.nl). This is the geo-information science education hub for the developing world in particular and the developed world in general. Enschede is also home for the University of Twente, a growing university with over 7500 students (2005) mainly focussed on technological studies (www.utwente.nl).