The Zaanstreek is the oldest industrial landscape in the Netherlands, where once hundreds of windmills spinned their blades at the same time. The area provides a characteristic picture of Dutch history. Old mills, typical green wooden houses, and monumental 19th-century warehouses and factories. Combined with an extensive peat meadow landscape with meadows, cows, ditches, pools, reed beds, bridges, and swampy peatlands, the Zaanstreek region fits perfectly with the image that foreign tourists have of the Netherlands. Mills, cheese, and clogs. It doesn't get more Dutch!