This beautiful building is an attraction in itself, so if you did not arrive in Amsterdam by train, it is well worth making a special trip to look at the station's facade. The station was built between 1881 and 1889 on three artificial islands. It was designed by Pierre Cuypers who also designed the Rijksmuseum in a similar neo-late-Gothic/Renaissance style. At the time, the project was highly controversial as the new station would effectively cut off the city from the IJ waterfront. Politicians in The Hague pushed it through anyway, and now it is widely regarded as the most beautiful station in the country.

Amsterdam Centraal station (Dutch: Station Amsterdam Centraal, lit. 'Amsterdam Central Station', Dutch pronunciation: [staːˈɕɔn ˌɑmstərˈdɑm sɛnˈtraːl], abbreviation: Asd) is the largest railway station in Amsterdam, North Holland, the Netherlands. A major international railway hub, it is used by 192,000 passengers a day, making it the second busiest railway station in the country after Utrecht Centraal and the most visited Rijksmonument of the Netherlands.

National and international railway services at Amsterdam Centraal are provided by NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), the principal rail operator in the Netherlands. Amsterdam Centraal is the northern terminus of Amsterdam Metro lines 51, 53, 54, and is a stop on Line 52 operated by municipal public transport operator GVB. It is also served by a number of GVB tram and ferry routes as well as local and regional bus routes operated by GVB, Connexxion and EBS.

Amsterdam Centraal was designed by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers and opened in 1889. It features a Gothic, Renaissance Revival station building and a cast iron platform roof spanning approximately 40 metres (130 ft).

Since 1997, the station building, underground passages, metro station, and the surrounding area have been undergoing major reconstruction and renovation works to accommodate the North-South Line metro route, which opened on 22 July 2018. Amsterdam Centraal has the second longest railway platform in the Netherlands with a length of 695 metres (2,280 ft). Due to the length, each platform may serve two trains, while one embarks from side "a" of a platform and the other, from side "b".