Nineteen Mills Against the Water
Fighting the Sea
Dutch water management
Much of the Netherlands sits below sea level. Windmills were built from the Middle Ages onward to pump water from low polders back into rivers and canals.
Kinderdijk
Built around 1740
Nineteen mills were raised together at Kinderdijk to drain the Alblasserwaard polder, forming the largest concentration of historic mills in the country.
Preserved Today
UNESCO listed since 1997
Though modern pumping stations do the heavy work now, the mills at Kinderdijk are kept operational and some are still lived in by millers.