National Park Drentsche Aa and Hunze Valley

The Landscape

The National Park Drentsche Aa is the best-preserved traditional cultural landscape in Western Europe. It covers a large area characterized by a network of meandering streams, known as the Drentsche Aa river and its tributaries flowing through a mosaic of fields, forests, heathlands, and small historic villages. The winding Drentsche Aa still largely follows its original course, and because there was little land consolidation, the traditional cultural landscape has remained almost intact. Everywhere you’ll find traces of early settlement: prehistoric dolmens and burial mounds, medieval cart tracks, Saxon farms nestled under ancient oaks, villages with village greens and rustic country lanes, small-scale elevated fields bordered by hedgerows, and flower-rich hay meadows along the river valley.

The Hunze Valley is an ancient and distinctive river valley in eastern Drenthe, where nature and history come together. Here you’ll find a peaceful, wide-open landscape with a beautiful mix of wet forests, marshes, grasslands, and winding streams. These streams are fed by underground springs, where iron-rich seepage water bubbles up, giving the area a unique atmosphere. For centuries, the Hunze, a peat stream, has shaped this landscape as it meanders through it. Early settlers lived on the higher sandy grounds, traces of which remain in burial mounds and celtic fields. Surrounding the valley are herb-rich meadows, hedgerows, and farms that lend the landscape a nostalgic charm.