Wieringen

( Listen? / I ) Wieringen is a former municipality in the Netherlands, North Holland province, whose area was about 169 km ². End of 2010, the municipality had approximately 8600 inhabitants.

The municipality of Wieringen is merged on 1 January 2012 along with the municipalities of Anna Pavlovna, Niedorp and Wieringermeer, the municipality Hollands Kroon.

Places

The community consisted of a former island named Wieringen. On it the following places ( the population of the town centers in parentheses) were:

• Hippolytushoef ( 4890 inhabitants); Seat of the municipality
• Den Oever ( 2180 ), on the southwestern beginning of the final dike
• Westerland ( 750 )
• Oosterland (230 )
• De Hauke ​​(140 )
• Stroe (140 )
• Oosterklief and Westerklief (140 )

Location and economic

Wieringen is located in the extreme north- east of the province and is surrounded by the polder Wieringermeer in the south, and from the Wadden Sea in the north. In the landscape, which is very different from the adjacent polders, and the villages is the former island character still felt good. There are plans Wieringen again by a border lake ( Wieringerrandmeer ) from the " mainland" to separate. About the island the N99 trunk road from Den Helder, at the Den Oever to the A7 motorway ( - Hoorn - Afsluitdike - Amsterdam, Leeuwarden ) runs followed. The nearest train station is in Den Helder or Anna Pavlovna.

Around 12 km of the 32 km long dike completion among Wieringen, and the remainder to Wûnseradiel in the province of Friesland.

The population lives mainly from agriculture. There are also fishing and small businesses. Tourism is also growing in importance.

History

The island of Wieringen created after the last Ice Age. Widespread there on Wieringen many boulders, which were often used by later inhabitants as a landmark; as a building material proved these boulders as unfit. From about the beginning of our era to about 350 lived here Friesen, who had sporadic contacts with the Roman Empire. But then the marshy area was often flooded by the sea to remain habitable.

Count Floris V of Holland subdued the island shortly before his death in the year 1284th For political reasons, acquired the island, though its inhabitants lived in small villages, in 1432 as a whole the municipal law. Their economic importance but at the time had already waned.

Wieringen remained for centuries a remote, little significant island with fishermen and farmers. The population preserved by its own national character.

Wieringen was internationally known as 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II here should spend the first few years of his exile; but the abdicated monarch settled in Doorn. His son, the Crown Prince Frederick William, however, remained on 22 November 1918 to 1923 on the island. He lived in the rectory of St. Michael's Church in the village Oosterland. There were a mocking pun on the text of a German soldier song: from " We struggle until victory, we wrestle to the death ... " was: " Wieringen until victory, Wieringen to death ... "

When the Zuiderzee Works were carried out abruptly ended the insulation. First, a dike was built on the western edge to the mainland ( Completion date: July 31, 1924); then followed the reclamation of Wieringermeer, by the island Wieringen lost his property, and the connection to the province of Friesland by the IJsselmeer Dam ( Dutch: Afsluitdijk ). This dyke begins near the village of Den Oever, in the east of the island.

Attractions

• To the east of the island of Afsluitdike begins
• On the western edge there is a lake ( Amstelmeer ), it serves as a recreational area and has plenty of water sports; the Navy of the Netherlands, which has been based in Den Helder, there has a water sports club
• There is the Museum Farm January Lont, a well-preserved farm according to the local tradition
• One of the silver treasures exhibited in Den Oever in the village museum; the other two are to be seen in Leiden in the there ' Rijksmuseum van Oudheden "
• The Michaelis Church of Oosterland dates from the 12th century
• The village church of Hippolytushoef that has been consecrated to the Church Father Hippolytus of Rome, has a tower dating from the 15th century; the church was, after it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1674, restored in a pleasant style.