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Wieringen
—  Municipality  —
Aerial photograph of Oosterland
Flag Coat of arms
Coordinates: 52°54′N 4°58′E / 52.90°N 4.97°E / 52.90; 4.97
Country	Netherlands
Province	North Holland
Area (2006)
- Total	212.50 km2 (82 sq mi)
- Land	26.77 km2 (10.3 sq mi)
- Water	185.73 km2 (71.7 sq mi)
Population (1 January, 2007)
- Total	8,705
- Density	325/km2 (841.7/sq mi)
	Source: CBS, Statline.
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
- Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Website	www.wieringen.nl

Wieringen ( pronunciation (help·info)) is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It consists of a former island, also named Wieringen, and there are plans to make Wieringen an island again by widening the Amsteldiepkanaal into a lake called the Wieringerrandmeer.

Population centres

The municipality of Wieringen consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: Dam, De Haukes, De Hoelm, Den Oever, Hippolytushoef, Hollebalg, Noordburen, Oosterklief, Oosterland, Smerp, Stroe, Vatrop, Westerklief and Westerland.

History

The landscape of Wieringen is not all flat: it is characterised by dam ramparts of boulder clay, which were formed during the Saale Ice Age. The name Wieringen has nothing to do with "wier"(seaweed in Dutch), but this connection was often made in former days. Probably the name came from Old Frisian wîr = "height".

Earliest references

The first known references to Wieringen is as "Wiron" or "pagus Wirense" in Latin in a list of property owned by the monastery at Fulda, dated late 8th century or early 9th century AD. In that list, the entries that mention Wieringen are:-

Ego Gebi tradidi ad monasterium sancti Bonifacii in pago Wirense curtilem unam cum omnibus que ad eam pertinent, terris et mancipiis, domibus et mancipiis. = "I, Gebi, have transferred to the monastery of St. Bonifacius in the area Wieringen one mansion with all that goes with it, land with the serfs and dwellings with the serfs.".

Ego Gerwic de Fresia trado sancto Bonifacio ad Fuldense monasterium terram iuris mei iuxta fluvium Maresdeop et quicquid proprietatis habui sive in agris vel pratis, silvis, domibus vel mancipiis. = "I, Gerwic of Friesland, transfer to St. Bonifacius of the monastery of Fulda the land that is under my jurisdiction near the river Marsdiep, and all I had in possession either fields or meadows, forests, houses or serfs.".

It describes the Marsdiep as "fluvium Maresdeop": fluvium is Latin for "river"; it seems that in that time Texel and Wieringen were much bigger and spread across what is now the western end of the Waddenzee and perhaps also other areas which are now sea or have been re-empoldered since. Wieringen and Texel may have met as opposite banks of the Maresdeop (which name may mean "morass deep"), which was then an ordinary river with banks of permanent land (but perhaps a large river, as it is called a "deep").

Ego Geltrud tradidi ad monasterium sancti Bonifacii omnem proprietatem meam in agris, silvis et de pratis ad XX carradas feni, in loco nuncupato Wictulfingafurt in pago Wironi. = "I, Geltrud, have transferred to the monastery of St. Bonifacius all my property in fields, forests and from the meadows to [= "enough land to produce"?] 20 cart-loads of hay, in the place named Wictulfingafurt, in the area Wieringen ...". Wictulfingafurt means "the ford of the sons or people of a man called Wictulf".

Ego in Dei nomine Isanbalt et uxor mea Sigibirn de Fresia tradimus ad sanctum Bonifacium in villa que dicitur Brochenlar, in pago Wirah, quicquid proprietatis habuimus, hoc est de terra arabili quantum XI modus conseri potest. = "In God's name I, Isanbalt and my wife Sigibirn from Friesland, transfer to St. Bonifacius in the manor which is named Brochenlar, in the area [named] Wieringen, all we had in property, that is of ploughland as much as can be sowed with 11 measures [of seed].".

The places Wictulfingafurt and Brochenlar cannot now be found, and their sites are likeliest now under the sea, or under some polder which has been made since.

Ego Hunbertus tradidi ad sanctum Bonifacium quicquid mihi in regione Frésionum in pago Wirah mei reliquere parentes in hereditatem, cunctamque meam possessionem, hoc est in terris, agris, pratis, pascuis, silvis, aquis, domibus ac familiis. = "I, Hunbertus, have transferred to St. Bonifacius whatever in the region of the Frisians in the area Wieringen my parents left me in inheritance, and my complete possessions, that it in fields, meadows, grassland, forests, waters, dwellings, and all the families [= "inhabitants of that estate"]".

These gifts are all dated between 800AD and 820AD and include 5 manors.

A possessions list of the St. Martin's church in Utrecht, dated 948, lists a church domain with 12 farms at Alvitlo (= De Elft), and 72 [probably mostly small] farms at Strude (= Stroe). Both these places still exist and are in Wieringen.

The amount of property in land in these two lists, would need an area much bigger than the modern (up to the 1930's) island of Wieringen.

Later history

Silver treasure was found in 1996 in a pasture at the hamlet of Westerklief, showing that Wieringen in the 9th century was for a short time an operating base of Vikings. The treasure is approx. 1.7 kilograms of silver coins and jewels and small silver ingots. It now can be seen in the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden in Leiden. Some years later were found smaller silver treasures from the same period which confirmed the picture. Wieringen became an island around 1200 as a result of successive storm floods.

The area was initially inhabited and controlled by Frisians, until the Dutch count Floris V made the Wieringers subject in 1284. Afterwards the area was unquiet for a time, and since 1297 was directly under the county of Holland, for it fell under Westfriesland. Westfriesland fell for some time under Frisian rule. In 1299 the county of Holland retook Holland and Westfriesland, and Wieringen fell under the district of Westfriesland. In 1432 all the island of Wieringen officially became one township and received city rights. But as more of Holland and Westfriesland developed and became more habitable, the importance of Wieringen decreased relatively.

A 1849 map of the island Wieringen

In 1798, when the Batavian Republic formed, the province of Holland and West Friesland was divided differently: it fell under the département of Texel (from the Vlie to the Rhine). In 1807 under Napoleon the province was differently subdivided and in two types of provinces; Amstelland and Maasland, but in 1814 came to that an end. In 1815 Holland with Westfriesland became a province of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. To reduce the dominance of the province of Holland, in 1840 under King Willem I it was split into the provinces of Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland. Since then Wieringen has been under the province of Noord-Holland.

In 1924 Wieringen stopped being an island, because on 31 July 1924 the Amsteldiep was closed by a short dam called the Amsteldiepdijk. In 1930 the Eastern Wieringermeerdijk was completed in the Zuiderzee, and with it the adjacent polder the Wieringermeer. The closing of the Zuiderzee was completed in 1932 by the Afsluitdijk, a large dike which links Wieringen with Friesland. This dike starts at Den Oever.

Soon after these changes Wieringen became an exile refuge for the German crown prince Wilhelm. He with his father Wilhelm II fled in November 1918 from Flanders to the Netherlands and got political asylum. On 22 November 1918 he arrived on the island, and he left 10 November 1923 to Germany. In the meantime at the blacksmithy in Hippolytushoef he learned how to forge horseshoes.

Local government

The municipal council of Wieringen consists of 13 seats, which are divided as follows:

• OW '91 – 5 seats
• VVD – 3 seats
• PvdA – 3 seats
• CDA – 2 seats

References

• Statistics are taken from the SDU Staatscourant

External links

• Media related to Wieringen at Wikimedia Commons

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