Royal Tropical Institute
| Tropeninstituut | |
Front view in 2009
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| Established | 1864 |
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| Location | Mauritskade 63, Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Coordinates | 52°21′46″N 4°55′21″E / 52.362692°N 4.922517°E |
| Public transit access | Alexanderplein GVB tram lines 9, 10, 14 |
| Website | www.kit.nl |
The Royal Tropical Institute, Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT) is a foundation located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, that studies tropical cultures worldwide.
The institute's history goes back to 1864, when it began in Haarlem as the Colonial Museum, founded to house the collection of artefacts brought back from the Dutch colonies in the East (esp. Dutch East India) by Frederik Willem van Eeden (botanist). Its mission also included the scientific study of products derived from the colonies and improving trade and production.
The collection grew rapidly. In 1910, the Vereeniging Koloniaal Institute was founded in Amsterdam, and in 1926 the museum's collection was moved there. In 1931 it hosted the World Social Economic Conference organised by the International Institute of Industrial Relations.
During World War II, the German occupying forces housed the Grüne Polizei in the institute; at the same time, owing to the complicated architecture of the building (at one time the largest building in the city), the institute was a hotbed of resistance—it housed weapons and radios, and even Dutchmen hiding from the Germans: the grandson of Hendrikus Colijn, resistance fighter Hendrik Colijn, worked there under the alias Colijn, and when the building was searched by the Germans in 1944 he escaped through the labyrinthine passages in the attic.
In 1950, after Dutch decolonization, the institute's mission changed, and its broadening interest, now in tropical cultures in general, was reflected with a name change, to the current Royal Tropical Institute. Today, the collection is housed in the Tropenmuseum, in the same building, with the entrance on the Linnaeusstraat.
As of May 2012, the institute's annual budget was over €40 million. In 2011 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands) had announced it would cease its €20 million annual subsidy, a decision appealed by the institute to the Dutch Council of State.
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