Amsterdam is the capital and largest city in the Netherlands. Located on the west coast of the European continent, Amsterdam was used as a major port during the Dutch Golden Age. Over the years it has expanded and grown rapidly making it the sixth largest metropolitan area in Europe and one of the most visited tourist spots in Europe, with 3.66 million tourists annually. Being a tourist in Amsterdam is actually quite easy thanks to the transportation company GVB. They offer a 3 day pass that allows people to get on any bus or transit vessel throughout the city. The transit system works like our train and bus systems with different lines going to different places, and designated times. If you do the research before leaving you are going to find it easy to get around, especially with the GVB website offering several different maps for each transit line and tourist attraction maps. The climate of Amsterdam also helps draw people to it. Due to it's placement between 3 big bodies of water, to help regulate the temperature not getting to extremely cold or hot during the seasons, although there is a definite change between the summer and winter months. Due to Amsterdam's placement between large masses of water floods have caused mayhem in the past. It has been more than 50 years since the last major flood due to the cities enhanced system of dikes and pumps to protect itself from the possibility of flooding. Although natural disasters haven't affected Amsterdam in quite some time, other things have affected the city greatly, such as the air disaster of 1992. Which occurred on October 4, 1992 when a cargo air craft crashed into a populated part of the city. After the crashed a lot of hazardous gases and materials were released into the air, the effects of these hazards are still seen today. Many studies since them have been done to assess the real damage to the air and to the health of those who were involved in the search and rescue efforts. The vegetation around Amsterdam is slim to none because the land has been exploited so much by the people due to it's size and reputation as a tourist hot spot over the years. It is a very metropolitan area covered greatly by buildings, cars and other humanized things.