The ''Haarlems Dagblad'' is a regional newspaper in
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
, Netherlands. It makes claim to being the newspaper with the oldest publishing history in the world, even if this claim is based on its (forced) merger with another title.
''Oprechte Haerlemsche Courant''
This earlier publication was published by Abraham Casteleyn and his wife
Margaretha van Bancken
Margaretha van Bancken (Amsterdam 1628 - Haarlem 1694) was a Dutch publisher from Haarlem.
Biography
She was the daughter of Dirck van Bancken and Anna Noppen.Margaretha van Bancken in
1001 Vrouwen
''1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis'' is a compilation of 1001 biographies of famous women of the Netherlands spanning roughly 1700 years.
Project
The book is the result of a research project called the Digital Women's lexicon of the N ...
The weekly (which soon began appearing twice and subsequently three times a week, and in the nineteenth century became a monthly) thus preceded English regular newspapers. In the paper's early days, the ''Windsor''
coffee house
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café is an establishment that primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non- ...
used to advertise that, apart from offering "the best chocolate", it supplied translations of "the ''Harlem Courant'' soon after the post is come in".
During the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War, the ''Opregte Haarlemsche Courant'' was forced to merge with ''Haarlems Dagblad''; hence the latter paper's claim to being the oldest title extant. The merged newspaper is owned by
Mediahuis
Mediahuis is a newspaper & magazine publishing, distribution, printing, TV, radio and online media company founded in 2014 with assets in Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg and Germany. Mediahuis publishes daily newspaper titles in Belg ...