From the Afsluitdijk the Wadden coast stretches out from Friesland in a gentle curve to the Lauwersmeer lake area. Man created this land behind the dikes with its old fishing villages and a few simple harbours as gateways to the islands. You’ll find salt-tolerant nature outside the dikes and a whole lot more on offer inside the dikes: wide open landscapes, horizon, mound villages with medieval churches, darkness and glorious silence. Here was once seabed. Villages well-known from the Elfsteden (Eleven cities) such as Workum, Harlingen, Franeker, Leeuwarden and Dokkum are also located here. Wayward and free. A Wadden land of excess you simply must see to believe.
Discover Friesland’s Wadden coast. Almost everyone has heard of the Wadden islands and the boat trips to reach them. But there is so much more. Cross over the dike absolutely anywhere and you’ll experience the breathtaking wonders of the Wadden Sea UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can see it from Makkum, the Afsluitdijk to Harlingen and from Zwarte Haan to Holwerd and Paesens-Moddergat. Visit the unique nature reserves outside the dikes with vast marshlands, summer polders, salt-tolerant grasslands and former mudflats.
More about the world heritage siteFrom the ancient mound landscapes and the earliest dikes such as the Pingjumer Gulden Halsband to the more recent Afsluitdijk, Kweldercentrum Noarderleech and the Lauwersmeer lake area. You will discover traces of the relationship between man and the sea everywhere in the Wadden area. The inhabitants learned how to cope with the water better and better. They built dams and dikes, began draining, and using sluices to create dry land and polders. Living below sea level? It’s only the rest of the world that finds this strange.
More about the water heritageLearn all about the old coastal fishing and the life of the residents of the double-sided Paesens-Moddergat.
Living on the edge of salt and fresh water? Explore the area with a guide from the Waddenvereniging and It Fryske Gea.
Discover everything about how the dwelling hill was created and then dug away in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Hegebeintum visitors centre.
