Huizen

Geschiedenis

Huizen is a municipality and a village in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.The name "Huizen" is Dutch for "houses" and this usage has been linked to the belief that the first stone houses in the region appeared here. Huizen is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam.HistoryHuizen originally was an agricultural village, about 2 kilometres from the sea. During wintertime the farmers went fishing. Later on it developed to coastal village, with a thriving fishing industry, which was stimulated by building the harbor about 1850. After the damming of the Zuider Zee by the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the old sea was degraded to a mere freshwater lake, and economical activities shifted towards industry and commerce.In the 1960s the town was designated to build substantially large residential areas, to overcome the housing shortage in the region. From then on, the village took on an influx of people and grew rapidly.Where the Phohi-flat now stands in Huizen was, before World War II, the site of a large transmitter intended for contacting the Dutch East Indies, some 12.000 km away.A post mill that stood in Huizen was dismantled in 1916. It was re-erected in 1919 at the Netherlands Open Air Museum, Arnhem, Gelderland.