Kinderdijk is situated in a polder (The Dutch term for land which has been reclaimed from the sea, lakes, or river deltas. The land is bounded by a dike, is drained, and is maintained by pumping.) at the the Lek and Noord rivers.

The Alblasserwaard polders are situated below sea level so these windmills were built to drain the excess water, this water is sluiced into the river Lek. These mills are the biggest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands.

These dutch windmills are possibly the best known tourist site within the Netherlands are were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1997.

It was really interesting to have a look around the inside of one of these old windmills, they are much bigger inside than they appear. However I’m pretty sure they didn’t have plasma screens in back in the 16th Century. We had a little boat ride up the polder to look at the windmills… they were great but once you’ve seen one windmill you’ve seen them all.