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Remarkable land · Kinderdijk, Molenlanden (Netherlands)

At Kinderdijk, below sea level, eight windmills of 1738 on the edge of a 4.4-hectare basin

Nineteen drainage windmills, all still in working order, on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1997.

At Kinderdijk, below sea level, eight windmills of 1738 on the edge of a 4.4-hectare basin
Aerial view. The white line follows plot Nieuw-Lekkerland D 1176.

History

The Alblasserwaard was a peat marsh hemmed in by large rivers. The first farmers settled on mounds of sand and clay, then dug ditches, raised dykes and drained the peat. In 1277 Count Floris V decided that the dyke around the whole area would be maintained jointly.

Two canals were dug to Kinderdijk to carry the water to the river: in 1365 for the eastern half of the Alblasserwaard, 17 km long, and in 1369 for the western half. They gave rise to two water boards, the Overwaard and the Nederwaard. The first drainage mills in the area were built around 1450. The oldest mill still standing at Kinderdijk, the Blokweer, dates from 1630.

Peat sinks as it dries, and the level of the Lek kept rising. Between 1738 and 1740 sixteen mills were built to lift the water: eight for the Nederwaard in 1738, eight for the Overwaard in 1740. They pumped water from the polder into storage reservoirs, from which it reached the river through sluices when the river level allowed. With the mills of the neighbouring polders, Kinderdijk has nineteen: eight round brick mills, ten octagonal thatched ones and one hollow post mill.

Steam pumping stations arrived in 1868. Converted to diesel and electricity between 1924 and 1927, they made the mills redundant: the Nederwaard mills were stopped in 1927, then used again during the Second World War; the Overwaard mills ran until 1953. Today the J.U. Smit and G.N. Kok pumping stations do the work. The mills are kept in working order as a back-up, and several are still lived in.

UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 1997. A non-profit foundation runs it with about a hundred staff and more than 270 volunteers. A provincial rule limits the height of buildings and trees within 400 m of the mills, so that they keep their wind. On the land registry, the eight Nederwaard mills line a single plot, D 1176 of the cadastral municipality of Nieuw-Lekkerland: 44,070 m², almost all of it water.

Our view

On the aerial view, plot D 1176 is not land but a basin more than a kilometre long, running from the Lek dyke and widening to the south. Eight narrow arms leave its western edge. Each one ends at the foot of a mill. The registry outline follows the water and stops at the foot of each mill.

To the east, a second, parallel basin carries the Overwaard row. Between the two, a narrow dyke serves as a path. To the north, both basins stop at the foot of the dyke, facing the river.

Updated 29 October 2026

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Sources

  1. Kinderdijk (Stichting Werelderfgoed Kinderdijk), « Geschiedenis » : chronologie de 1277 à 2025
  2. Kinderdijk, page d'accueil (fondation sans but lucratif, 270 bénévoles, 100 salariés)
  3. UNESCO, Centre du patrimoine mondial, « Réseau des moulins de Kinderdijk-Elshout » (bien n° 818, 1997)
  4. Kadaster, Basisregistratie Kadaster par PDOK : parcelle Nieuw-Lekkerland D 1176
  5. PDOK, photo aérienne actuelle (Beeldmateriaal Nederland, CC BY 4.0), service WMS
  6. PVGIS, Commission européenne (Centre commun de recherche)
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Aerial photograph: Beeldmateriaal Nederland (PDOK), CC BY 4.0. Plot outline: national land registry. Our editorial pact