Beemster

Around AD 800 the area of the Beemster was covered in peat and crossed by a small river called the Bamestra. Between 1150 and 1250, peat digging and storm floods widened it into a lake connected to the Zuiderzee. In the early 17th century private investors set out to drain the lake with windmills.

By 1610 the work was almost complete, but a breach in the Zuiderzee dykes flooded the lake again, and the ring dyke was raised a metre above the surrounding land. In 1612 the polder was dry and the land was divided among the investors. UNESCO describes it as the first large reclamation of its kind, covering 7,208 hectares, and its early farmers grew crops needed for the long voyages of the Dutch East India Company.

The land was laid out on a geometric plan following the ideals of antiquity and the Renaissance. Oblong lots of 180 by 900 m form units of 900 m square, five lots to a unit, and four units make a larger square, while roads and watercourses run north to south and east to west inside a ring dyke and ring canal. Five forts built between 1880 and 1920 as part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam stand in the polder, which was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999.