What is the oldest tree in Amsterdam?
The oldest tree in Amsterdam is the Heimanseik, a pedunculate oak in Artis Park estimated at around 275 years old, rooted since roughly 1750, decades before the zoo itself was founded in 1838. It stands near the chimpanzee enclosure and can be visited with a ticket to Artis, a short walk from the Artis tram stop.
Amsterdam's peat foundations and history of fires, floods and rebuilding mean the city holds nothing like London's thousand-year yews or Paris's four-century black locusts. Its oldest confirmed tree, the Heimanseik, dates to around 1750 and owes its survival to an accident of geography: the oak was already mature when Artis was founded around it in 1838, so the zoo grew up incorporating the tree rather than the other way round. It is named after Eli Heimans, a naturalist who wrote about the oak in 1903 and helped popularize the idea that ordinary urban nature deserved close attention. Two fungi now grow in its trunk, a common condition in oaks this age, and arborists inspect it annually to judge how much longer it can safely stand. Summer oaks can live seven centuries, which makes 275 modest for the species even if it is a record for the city. Amsterdam's runners up are largely elms and wingnuts in the 100 to 175 year range, survivors of Dutch elm disease and redevelopment rather than centuries of neglect. Getting there: Tram 14 to Artis, then a short walk to the oak near the chimpanzee enclosure.
One of Amsterdam's trees also appears in The Great Planes of Europe, a themed collection spanning several cities.