Moerdijk

( Listen? / I ) Moerdijk is a municipality in the Netherlands, North Brabant province. Their total area is about 185 km ². It has 36 618 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2013).

Geography

Places

The municipality consists of the town of Willemstad and Klundert, the villages Fijnaart, Heijningen, Moerdijk, Standdaarbuiten, Zevenbergen and Zevenbergschen Hoek and some small towns and villages. In Zevenbergen is the town hall of the municipality.

Location and economic

The municipality is situated on the south bank of the Hollands Diep in the north of the province of North Brabant and has a bridge connection with South Holland.

Zevenbergen has a station on the line Dordrecht, Roosendaal. The highway between these two cities passes through the community.

The village of Moerdijk, originated in a dike located in the bog, is now expanded, especially known for the Built in 1872, the railway bridge, then one of the longest in Europe, and the road bridge built in 1936 to a highway bridge over the Hollands Diep. The bridges connect North Brabant and South Holland and were therefore strongly contested in May 1940 during the Second World War.

To the west of the village of Moerdijk is a huge industrial area, where, among other things, a chemical plant of the Shell Group and a large power station stand. Fijnaart forms the north of a large area, where many sugar beets are grown and almost all the sugar production in the Netherlands is concentrated. A further expansion of the port and logistics capacity is 2007 study.

One of a total of 22 sites of Ardagh Glass Group for the manufacture of container glass in Europe.

History

The area belonged in the Middle Ages to the politically connected with Holland County Strijen. In 1421 it was visited by the St. Elisabeth flood, many people lost their lives. This created the Hollands Diep and the church was separated from Holland. In 1583, William of Orange was the places Klundert and named after him Willemstad expand to small fortress cities. Maurice of Nassau she let 1602 be improved, and in both places was the town-hall. Willemstad stayed over two centuries, a garrison town.

In 1845, the first railway was built from Belgium coming. Because of the missing bridge she associated via a ferry. The port was built in 1858, the railway bridge in 1872. Meanwhile, the sugar production was more important than the production of linen from flax become what was for the economic development of the area of benefit. In 1953 Fijnaart and Heijningen by the tsunami were hit hard.

On 1 January 1997, the municipality was created in its present form, however, it was called until 31 March 1998, or Zevenbergen. On January 5, 2011, there came into the chemical plants, a major fire. The fire-fighting operations continued until the next day. In that time there was high alert in Moerdijk and neighboring Dordrecht.

Attractions

Willemstad has a small, but very interesting town center with its many beautifully restored buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. It is a typically Dutch small fortress town. The fortification of 1602 has seven bastions, for each province of the then Republic of the Netherlands. It was restored in the 1980s. Willemstad also has two marinas and some good restaurants. Nearby is the Mannetje van Willemstad was found.

Klundert has a town hall, a museum in the production of sugar from sugar beets and the processing of flax into linen are explained. Also Klundert has a small marina.

Sons and daughters of the city

• Wim van Est (1923-2003), a cyclist, born in Fijnaart

Linguistic

The Dutch phrase boven (above ) or beneden (below ) Moerdijk indicates: in the true Protestant Holland, and in the southern, Catholic Netherlands ( North Brabant and Limburg ( Netherlands) ).

The Hollands Diep could be crossed only with much effort by ship before 1872. It was thus the symbol of the earlier more than today significant cultural divide between the north and the south of the Netherlands.