Astroparticle physics with the AMANDA neutrino telescope

The AMANDA neutrino telescope at the South Pole has been taking data successfully since 1997. This detector opened a new window on a wide range of physics including atmospheric neutrinos, indirect searches for WIMP dark matter and possible astrophysical sources of high energy neutrinos such as Gamma Ray Bursts and Active galactic Nuclei. With the detection of several thousand atmospheric neutrinos it has proved the feasibility of using the South Pole icecap as a Cherenkov medium for the detection of high energy neutrinos, and provided much useful technical information for its successor experiment IceCube of which it is now the low energy extension. We present here a selection of the various searches performed and the increasingly stringent limits obtained over many years of operation.