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Waterland and Zaan Region
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The Waterland and Zaan Region of North-Holland in the West of the Netherlands has every stereotype one would expect from the country: a flat rural land with dykes, clogs, windmills, flowers and wooden houses. Typical rural towns are Edam, Marken, Monnickendam, Volendam and Zaanse Schans.
[edit] Cities
[edit] Waterland
[edit] Zaan Region
- Assendelft
- Jisp
- Koog aan de Zaan
- Krommenie
- Marken-Binnen
- Oostknollendam
- Oostzaan
- Westknollendam
- Westzaan
- Wormer
- Wormerveer
- Wijdewormer
- Zaandam, with an open air museum-like neighborhood Zaanse Schans.
[edit] Other destinations
[edit] Understand
[edit] Zaan Region
The Zaanstreek ('area of the river Zaan', Zaan Region) is a region just north of the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. It is roughly covered by the municipality of Zaanstad. It consists of 7 towns of which Zaandam is the biggest.
The Zaanstreek evolved on the banks of the peat river Zaan, which once was connected to the main waterway of Amsterdamn, the IJ. It is a typical Dutch landscape, being below sea level, with hundreds of ditches and pastures. The Zaanstreek is a region of contrasts: modern and 19th century industrial buildings mixed with old windmills and wooden houses all with the background of the quiet Zaan river and meadows.
The Zaanstreek/Zaan area is possibly the oldest industrial area in the world. It flourished in the 17th century, when there where about a 1,000 wind mills processing food products and wood. That pre-steam development was made possible by technological improvements of the windmills (like the patenting of crankshaft applications in 1592) and the need for the produce of the mills for neighbouring Amsterdam.
Large quantities of wood and rope where needed for the big wooden merchant ships that were build in de Zaanstreek to provide the Amsterdam merchants (early capitalists) with the means to plunder the Dutch colonies (Indonesia, the Carribean). Also paper industry flourished, and it is beleived that the Declaration of Indepence (USA) is written on paper from the Zaan area.
Also, many food products that were imported, where processed with the windmills in the Zaanstreek, like cocoa, rice and wheat. Chocolat, bread, cooking rice, roasted coffee, vegetable oil, pastry, animal food, etc. where produced in large quantities, providing for much of the Dutch population.
Later, the shipbuilding and almost all of the wood industry (furniture, paper) disappeared, but the food processing industry stayed. It modernised and replaced the wind mills for steam engines during the 19th century.
Even today, the biggest Dutch companies in the food industry still have their base in the Zaanstreek, like the multinational Albert Heijn. Flour for 90% of all bread in the Netherlands comes from one factory in the Zaanstreek (Meneba). There are many cocoa factories, producing chocolat from cocoa coming from the biggest 'cocoa port in the world', Amsterdam.
Besides these present day modern industry, in a higher concentration then usual in the Netherlands, you can still see the older industry (no longer in use) in the Zaanstreek. Along the river Zaan, you can find still dozens of original windmills (mostly entirely made of wood), still technically functioning, some of them over 350 years old. Next to these there are many 19th century stone industrial buildings, nowadays derilect or converted into appartments, but still recognisable as industrial buildings. In some cases this old en less old industry is intertwined, like with Duyvis: the modern factory is actually build around a centuries old wooden windmill.
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