Zaanse Schans

Zaanse Schans is a neighbourhood of Zaandam, north of Amsterdam, best known for its standing collection of historic windmills and green-timbered Zaan houses. Most were not built here: between 1961 and 1974 buildings from across the Zaanstreek were lifted onto lowboy trailers and brought to the site for preservation, though two of the mills remain where they were first raised. The result is a protected village scene rather than a museum in the usual sense, with working mills among them, the paint mill de Kat, and the oil mills de Bonte Hen and de Os. The Zaans Museum opened alongside it in 1994. Some 2.6 million people visited in 2024.