Zaanse Schans — open-air museum
Image by 3345557 from Pixabay

Zaanse Schans

  • 2 min read
  • 52.474° N 4.816° E

Interesting facts

  • De Kat is described as the only working windmill in the world still producing paint pigments, grinding chalk and minerals by wind power.
  • With around 130,000 visitors a year, De Kat is said to be the most visited windmill in the Netherlands.
  • Today's De Kat is a hybrid: in 1960 an octagonal paint mill named De Duinjager was set on top of the old storehouse of a 1646 oil mill.
  • The original De Kat burned down in 1781 and was rebuilt within a year, before stopping work in 1904.
  • The preservation idea grew from a 1946 citizens' initiative called Zaans Schoon, which sought to rescue the region's wooden heritage.
  • Architect Jaap Schipper's 1952 plan for the neighbourhood had room for just 43 buildings and a single mill.
  • The original redoubt was ordered in 1574 by Diederik Sonoy, a governor serving William of Orange, against Spanish troops.
  • Back in 1938 the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem had already rebuilt a Zaan quarter from four relocated houses.
  • By around 1970 only fifteen houses had been rebuilt on the site, and it became an established tourist destination from 1976.
  • The Zaanse Schans is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Why it is worth it

The Zaanse Schans is a riverside village of green wooden houses and working windmills on the bank of the Zaan, just north of Amsterdam. It looks like a surviving 18th-century hamlet but is in fact a deliberate reconstruction: from the early 1960s historic timber houses, barns and mills from all over the Zaan region were lifted onto low-loader trailers and moved here to save them from demolition. Only a few mills stand on their original sites, among them the oil mill De Os and the lower parts of De Kat and De Bonte Hen.

The Zaan region was one of the first industrial landscapes in Europe. From the late 16th century hundreds of wind-driven mills here sawed timber, pressed oil, ground mustard and pigments, and the villages built their houses of wood in a distinctive style: green-painted planked walls, white trim, decorated gables and neat front gardens. The idea of preserving them in one ensemble began after the Second World War; the plan was approved in 1956, and the name was given in 1961 after a redoubt built in 1574 against Spanish troops during the Eighty Years' War.

The mills are the heart of the place. De Kat is a dye mill that grinds pigments, De Zoeker presses oil, Het Jonge Schaap and De Gekroonde Poelenburg saw wood, and De Huisman is a mustard mill. The houses are mostly private homes, which gives the village a lived-in feel, and there are small museums and workshops, from clog-making to pewter casting. The Zaans Museum at the southern end tells the story of the region's industry. Since 2010 the Zaanse Schans has been a protected townscape.

Its popularity is enormous, with 2.6 million visitors in 2024, so early morning or evening, when the sails turn against a low sun over the polder, is the best time to see it.

Getting there

The Zaanse Schans lies in Zaanstad, about 2 km from the centre of Zaandam. Zaandijk Zaanse Schans railway station is a short walk away, about 18 minutes by train from Amsterdam Centraal. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS) is about 19 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in North Holland 9The Most Beautiful Places in the Kingdom of the Netherlands 25The Most Remarkable Open-Air Museums 7The Most Beautiful Buildings in the Kingdom of the Netherlands 10The Most Beautiful Buildings 286

From the encyclopaedia

Zaanse Schans is a neighbourhood of Zaandam, near Zaandijk, Netherlands. It is best known for its collection of historic windmills and wooden houses that were relocated here from the wider region north of Amsterdam for preservation. From 1961 to 1974, old buildings from all over the region known as the Zaanstreek were relocated using lowboy trailers to Zaanse Schans. Two of the windmills in Zaanse Schans are preserved on their original site where they were first constructed, and therefore do not constitute part of the relocated structures. The Zaans Museum, established in 1994, near the first Zaanse Schans windmill, is located south of the neighbourhood. This architectural reserve for Zaanse timber construction is a protected village scene because of its architectural-historical and landscape value. It developed into an international tourist destination with several million visitors every year: in 2024, there were 2.6 million.

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