Alblasserwaard and UNESCO World Heritage Kinderdijk

The Landscape

The Alblasserwaard is a quintessential Dutch polder landscape, with wide open meadows, winding dikes, and countless ditches and streams lined with gnarled pollard willows standing like silent sentinels. This green, water-rich region lies between the major rivers Lek, Merwede, and Noord, and owes its existence to centuries of land reclamation and water management. The landscape is shaped by low-lying farmland, bordered by characteristic dikes and man-made waterways that protect it from flooding. The Alblasserwaard is also home to historic villages with old farmhouses and the iconic windmills of Kinderdijk, a symbol of the region’s rich water heritage.

Tucked away in the wide-open polders of the Alblasserwaard, the UNESCO World Heritage site of Kinderdijk stands as a symbol of Dutch mastery in water management and technical ingenuity. Surrounded by peaceful landscapes and dominated by its iconic windmills, Kinderdijk serves as a living museum of Dutch hydraulic engineering. This remarkable heritage site reveals a complex system of canals, dikes, and mills that not only shapes the character of the region but has also earned global recognition with a well-deserved place on the UNESCO World Heritage List.