Wijk aan Zee (; ) is a village on the coast of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

in the municipality of

Beverwijk Beverwijk () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The town is located about northwest of Amsterdam in the Randstad metropolitan area, north of the North Sea Canal very close to the North Sea coast. A ...

, the province of

North Holland North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...

of the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The prestigious

Tata Steel Chess Tournament The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens Tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Ste ...

(formerly called the

Corus chess tournament The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is an annual chess tournament held in January in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. It was called the Hoogovens Tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Ste ...

or the Hoogovens tournament) takes place there every year. Due to its seaside location, Wijk aan Zee has become a popular destination among tourists. This is reflected in the village economy, which consists of many bars and hotels.

Cultural Village of Europe 1999

In 1999, Wijk aan Zee named itself "Cultural Village of Europe", recognizing the special nature of village life in general. This was three years after the Danish village of

Tommerup Tommerup is a town in central Denmark with a population of 1,567 (1 January 2025),England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

The Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in an effort to determine the role and future of villages in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, but also to help each other find ways to cope with difficulties that come to small communities nowadays. Each year, another one of these villages would bear the title of "Cultural Village of Europe". During the last years, the Cultural Village project led to an increasingly refined picture of what villages have to offer and how to offer it. Simultaneously, this brought about a social critique that is relevant to urban areas as well. It has attracted the attention of the Dutch government, who asked one of the initiators of the project to write an essay about how to 'build' villages. Recently, a Dutch journalist wrote a book about the project called 'Vital Villages', in which the thoughts and deeds of the 'village movement' are documented.Jacky de Vries,
Vital Villages

Atlantic Wall

In the dune landscape around Wijk aan Zee some bunkers still remain of the

Atlantic Wall The Atlantic Wall () was an extensive system of coastal defence and fortification, coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defense (military), d ...

, built by the German occupying forces between 1940 and 1944. These coastal defence works (''kustverdedigingswerken'' in Dutch) formed part of the so-called “Fortress IJmuiden,” (''Festung IJmuiden'' in German.) The purpose of the Fortress IJmuiden was to protect the port of

IJmuiden n IJ (digraph) and that should remain the only places where they are used. > IJmuiden () is a port town in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is the main town in the municipality of Velsen which lies mainly to the south-ea ...

and the nearby steelworks against attacks from the Allies. All of these defences were protected by a combination of mine fields, tank ditches, and dams, some of which ran kilometres deep inland. In November 1942 it was decided there would be a complete evacuation of the inhabitants of Wijk aan Zee to the inland country. Many inhabitants withdrew to

and

Velsen Velsen () is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal. On the north side of the North Sea Canal there is a major steel plant, Tata Steel IJmuiden, formerly known as ...

. On 12 August 1943 the occupants were permitted to return at their own risk, but on 15 October 1943 the village was once again evacuated. On the dunes behind Hotel de Wijk, a radar bunker was constructed by the Germans. This was aimed at intercepting enemy ships and planes. These radar screens had a height of twenty meters and for this reason had to be deeply set in the concrete of the bunker. These radar installations were called Mammoths‘ Teeth, (''Mammutstanden'' in Dutch). In total there were four places in the Netherlands where these "Mammoths’ Teeth" stood:

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...

, Oostkapelle,

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

and Wijk aan Zee. In the summer of 1944, after the landings of the Allies, Velsen and some parts of Beverwijk were also evacuated. The occupants of Wijk aan Zee then had to move still further away from their village, generally to Haarlem or Amsterdam. After the liberation and as of 8 June 1945 the people could return to their mostly empty houses. The German troops that remained were kept by Allied soldiers and Dutch citizen soldiers as prisoners of war and were kept temporarily in still empty apartments. Before they would return to Germany, they were forced to clear the dams and mine fields. The manner in which this happened was indeed cruel: the soldiers had to clear an area of mines completely by walking arm in arm in wide rows. Some German soldiers lost their lives in this clearing of mines. Some rural occupants didn't like the idea of de-mining being finished so quickly and so it could be that the German soldiers searched at least one area for mines where they knew for certain mines had indeed been laid. However, the citizen population had personally removed the mines earlier in that area to be able to enter for poaching purposes. When the village had been safely cleared, the German soldiers were sent back to Germany.

Art

The beach at Wijk Aan Zee was used in 1999 as the site for

Aleksandra Mir Aleksandra Mir (born 1967) is a Swedish-American contemporary artist known for her large scale collaborative projects and for her anthropological methods, involving rigorous archival research, oral history and field work. Her work deals with tra ...

's performance ''First Woman on the Moon''.

Gallery

File:Wijk aan Zee 1.jpg, 1995 File:Wijk aan zee 054.JPG, Catholic church File:Wijk aan zee 057.JPG, Houses File:Wijk aan zee 061.JPG, Village church File:Wijk aan Zee Vakantiehuisjes.jpg, Beach houses

References

External links

*
Cultural Village Website
*
Website wijk aan Zee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wijk Aan Zee Populated places in North Holland Populated coastal places in the Netherlands Beverwijk