Zwanenburg () is a town in the
Dutch province of
North Holland
North Holland ( nl, Noord-Holland, ) is a province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevoland. In November 2019, it had a ...
. It is a part of the municipality of
Haarlemmermeer, and lies about 11 km west of
Amsterdam.
Zwanenburg has a population of around 7,670.
[Statistics Netherlands (CBS), ''Gemeente Op Maat 2004: Haarlemmermeer']
History
Zwanenburg takes its name from
Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg
The Gemeenlandshuis Zwanenburg () on the Haarlemmerstraatweg in Halfweg is a former Gemeenlandshuis of the Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland designed by Pieter Post and built 1645–1648.
History
The Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland built this build ...
, the former headquarters of the Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland, a water board that used to have its headquarters in
Halfweg, on the other side of the canal known today as the
Ringvaart. Up until the 19th century, Zwanenburg was under water. When the pumping station at Halfweg had succeeded in making the land ripe for building, the workers who had settled at Halfweg purchased this cheap land below the dike for their homes. The infrastructure linking Halfweg to
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
and
Amsterdam was already quite good, so Zwanenburg became a true commuter town. Halfweg was also the site of a large
sugar factory
A sugar refinery is a refinery which processes raw sugar from cane or beets into white refined sugar.
Many cane sugar mills produce raw sugar, which is sugar that still contains molasses, giving it more colour (and impurities) than the white ...
, first opened in 1863, that served as an employer for Zwanenburg residents for more than a century. For this reason, the history of Zwanenburg cannot be seen separately from the history of Halfweg.
Halfweg buildings important to Zwanenburg history
File:Gemaal Halfweg.jpeg, Steam pumping mill at the location of the old sluice; now a museum
File:Huis Zwanenburg te Halfweg 20090927.jpg, Former headquarters of Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland
File:Halfweg suikerfabriek.jpg, Old sugar factory (silos, not visible, have been transformed into office space)
File:Zwanenburg01.JPG, Aerial view of Zwanenburg from the Northwest
References
Populated places in North Holland
Haarlemmermeer
{{NorthHolland-geo-stub