Droogmakerij de Beemster (Beemster Polder)

Droogmakerij de Beemster, commonly called the Beemster Polder, is a reclaimed polder in North Holland notable for its early 17th-century planned landscape and irrigation network. It is recognised for its regular, geometric layout of fields, canals and roads established when the lake was drained.

The polder’s principal attractions are its ordered grid of waterways and straight roads, the concentration of historic farmsteads and village centres such as Middenbeemster, and surviving examples of wind-driven pumping technology used for reclamation. The coherent 17th-century pattern is still visible in the parceling of the land and settlement distribution.

The Beemster was drained and consolidated in the early 1600s using windmills and canal engineering, creating fertile agricultural land and a distinctive planned rural landscape. Over subsequent centuries the area retained many original field boundaries, farm buildings and villages that reflect its Dutch Golden Age origins.

The polder lies in North Holland, north of Amsterdam and adjacent to the town of Purmerend, within the low-lying Dutch countryside that has been reshaped by centuries of water management.

• Reclamation and planning: Drained using wind-driven pumping mills in the early 17th century and developed according to Renaissance planning principles that influenced later Dutch land-reclamation schemes.

What to See #

• Polder grid: A regularly patterned reclaimed peatland and farmland established in the early 17th century, characterised by a grid of canals, roads and rectangular parcels laid out to manage water and agriculture.
• Middenbeemster: The town of **Middenbeemster**, an organised settlement with straight streets and 17th- and 18th-century farmsteads, serving as the historic administrative and social centre of the polder.