West Holland

Surprisingly, much of the province still has a rural character. The remaining agricultural land and natural areas are highly valued and protected.

Most of the arable land is used for intensive agriculture , including horticulture and greenhouse agri-businesses. The land that is now Holland has not been "stable" since prehistoric times.

The western coastline shifted up to thirty kilometres 19 miles to the east and storm surges regularly broke through the row of coastal dunes.

The Frisian Isles , originally joined to the mainland, became detached islands in the north. The main rivers, the Rhine and the Meuse Maas , flooded regularly and changed course repeatedly and dramatically.

The people of Holland found themselves living in an unstable, watery environment. Behind the dunes on the coast of the Netherlands a high peat plateau had grown, forming a natural protection against the sea.

Much of the area was marsh and bog. By the tenth century the inhabitants set about cultivating this land by draining it.

However, the drainage resulted in extreme soil shrinkage, lowering the surface of the land by up to fifteen metres 49 feet.

To the south of Holland, in Zeeland , and to the north, in Frisia , this development led to catastrophic storm floods literally washing away entire regions, as the peat layer disintegrated or became detached and was carried away by the flood water.

From the Frisian side the sea even flooded the area to the east, gradually hollowing Holland out from behind and forming the Zuiderzee the present IJsselmeer.

This inland sea threatened to link up with the "drowned lands" of Zealand in the south, reducing Holland to a series of narrow dune barrier islands in front of a lagoon.

Only drastic administrative intervention saved the county from utter destruction. The counts and large monasteries took the lead in these efforts, building the first heavy emergency dikes to bolster critical points.

Later special autonomous administrative bodies were formed, the waterschappen "water control boards" , which had the legal power to enforce their regulations and decisions on water management.

They eventually constructed an extensive dike system that covered the coastline and the polders, thus protecting the land from further incursions by the sea.

However, the Hollanders did not stop there. Starting around the 16th century, they took the offensive and began land reclamation projects, converting lakes, marshy areas and adjoining mudflats into polders.

This continued well into the 20th century. As a result, historical maps of medieval and early modern Holland bear little resemblance to present maps.

This ongoing struggle to master the water played an important role in the development of Holland as a maritime and economic power, and has traditionally been seen as developing the presumed collective character of its inhabitants: stubborn, egalitarian and frugal.

The stereotypical image of Holland is an artificial amalgam of tulips , windmills , clogs , Edam cheese and the traditional dress klederdracht of the village of Volendam , far from the reality of everyday Holland.

These stereotypes were deliberately created in the late 19th century by official "Holland Promotion" to attract tourists.

The predominance of Holland in the Netherlands has resulted in regionalism on the part of the other provinces, a reaction to the perceived threat that Holland poses to their local culture and identity.

The other provinces have a strong, and often negative, [17] image of Holland and the Hollanders, to whom certain qualities are ascribed within a mental geography , a conceptual mapping of spaces and their inhabitants.

Consequently, they see themselves not primarily as Hollanders, but simply as Dutch Nederlanders. The predominant language spoken in Holland is Dutch.

Hollanders sometimes call the Dutch language " Hollands, " [21] instead of the standard term Nederlands. Inhabitants of Belgium and other provinces of the Netherlands use "Hollands" to mean a Hollandic dialect or strong accent.

De sandwichpanelen hebben in vergelijking met de traditionele, op de bouwplaats samengestelde bekledingssystemen, een groot aantal voordelen.

Zo worden problemen van inwendige condensatie en koudebruggen binnen de spouw opgelost en langdurige thermische betrouwbaarheid verzekerd.

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Het knikdak systeem is niet meer weg te denken uit de moderne tuinbouw. Een bedrijfsruimte realiseer je nu gemakkelijk door het glas te vervangen voor een WNL knikdak systeem.

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Long before he set up his own company the founder of Van West Holland, W van West, had been a skilled professional.

When the ships docked in the port of Amsterdam, often after a very long voyage, various parts would either need repair or replacement.

Foundation Inventions Westenwind. Your Name required. Your Email required. Your Message. Specialized in Diesel Engine spare parts - since Reconditioning We do reconditioning of engine spare parts for our customers and for stock purposes.

Customer Services How do we work Our job is to get your product to the vessel as soon as possible, with the highest ammount of quality and care. Because of this, the toponym "West Friesland" was applied more to the Westflinge area than to the original West Friesland.

For approximately years, West Friesland operated as an autonomous area as the West Frisians did not wish to be vassals of lords from Holland.

West Friesland formed a united province with Holland in the Dutch Republic , though it was recognized an autonomous region, and the parliament of said province, commonly known as Holland , was formally known as the States of Holland and West Friesland.

Any admiral serving within this admiralty or the two other Hollandic admiralties Amsterdam and the Admiralty of de Maze had the title of Admiral of Holland and West Frisia.

The West Frisian language has disappeared from the region [1] and the later West Frisian dialects are now slowly disappearing.

Although these dialects are subdialects of Hollandic Dutch, they were strongly influenced in vocabulary and grammar by a West Frisian substratum.

The first inhabitants of Alkmaar, Oudorp, and St Pancras likely settled along the high beach ridges of the Vroonermeer in the 9th century AD.

Better known as Vroonen , this settlement subsequently grew into a village.