Marken

About this place

Marken is a village on a peninsula in the Markermeer lake, in the municipality of Waterland in North Holland, about 17 km northeast of Amsterdam in a straight line. About 1,700 people live there, and it was an island in the Zuiderzee until 1957, when a dam linked it to the mainland. The name Marken means «borderland»: the area was joined to the mainland until 1164, when a flood cut it off and turned it into an island. Around 1232 monks from Friesland bought it, built the first dike and enlarged the island by draining land. Its people long lived from fishing and cattle farming, building their houses on small man-made mounds and stilts to escape floods. Green and black wooden houses with white trim cluster tightly on the little mounds, divided by narrow lanes and small canals. A row of wooden houses faces the boats at the harbour, flat meadows spread around the village, and a white lighthouse stands at its tip. Visitors wander the lanes, visit the Marken Museum and the old shipyard workshop, and walk out to the lighthouse. In season a ferry runs between Marken and Volendam, so many people combine both villages on one trip from Amsterdam.