The green wooden village
Zaanse Schans
Wooden houses and windmills painted dark green with white trim, on a river north of Amsterdam.
Why Zaanse Schans is zaan green
Zaanse Schans is a small neighbourhood on the Zaan river, north of Amsterdam. The Zaan region was an early industrial area, with hundreds of windmills sawing timber and grinding oil, spices and pigments. Its houses were built of wood because the peaty ground could not carry heavy brick, and they were painted for protection, most often in a deep green with white edges. From 1961 onward, old houses, barns and mills from around the region were moved here to save them. A handful of working mills line the dyke. One of them still grinds chalk and pigments for paint, a reminder that the mills once made the colours as well as wearing them.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Zaanse Schans
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Zaanse Schans" on Wikipedia. If you know Zaanse Schans and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Bo Kaap Za: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Delft Nl: W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Amsterdam Nl: ESA (European Space Agency), Attribution, source
- Poznan Pl: Stanisław Szewczyk, CC BY 3.0, source